DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
2. This Office Action is in response to the application filed on 03/11/2025. Claims 1 and through 20 are presently pending and are presented for examination.
3. 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 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. 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, 3-6, 11, and 13-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Torimoto et al. (US 2021/0231814 A1) in view of Liu et al. (US 2020/0343968 A1).
For claims 1 and 11 Torimoto teaches a communication method (paragraph 1 “positioning technology using positioning satellites”), wherein the method comprises:
obtaining topology information of a satellite network, wherein the topology information comprises information about a channel between satellites in the satellite network (paragraph 2 “require satellite positioning for obtaining position information…satellite acquisition is interrupted and reacquired”, paragraph 17 “the first base station includes a first receiving device that receives positioning signals transmitted from a plurality of positioning satellites as first positioning signals, is set as a position reference station for position measurement, and serves as a base station of a mobile phone”, paragraph 35 “”obtain GNSS data from GNSS satellites”, and paragraph 37 “The macro cell base station transmits positioning data that is data obtained from the GNSS data by the macro cell base station and that is used for positioning with GNSS satellites to the small cell base station in a small cell in which the mobile station exists as user plane data addressed to the mobile station, the user plane data being data used for communication processing in small cells using user planes”); and
selecting a first user plane network element based on the topology information, identification information of at least one satellite on which at least one user plane network element is located (paragraph 37 “the macro cell base station transmits positioning data that is data obtained from the GNSS data by the macro cell base station and that is used for positioning with GNSS satellites to the small cell base station in a small cell in which the mobile station exists as user plane data addressed to the mobile station, the user plane data being data used for communication processing in small cells using user planes”), and identification information of a satellite on which an access network device is located, wherein the first user plane network element is one of the at least one user plane network element (paragraph 270 “…. the mobile station Mb1 requests the core network management station to perform search processing for a positioning reference station using U-Plane data…U-Plane (req_GNSS_search) to the core network…the mobile station Mb1 transmits data U-plane (Req_GNSS_search) including IDs of satellites from which GNSS signals have been received at the mobile station Mbl1 and the number of satellites from which GNSS signals have been received at the mobile station Mb1 to the core network management station”).
Torimoto does not explicitly teach obtaining topology information of a satellite network.
However, Liu teaches obtaining module, configured for obtaining topology information of the subnet based on the probe response messages… further configured for sending the topology information of the subnet to the central controller, such that the central controller determines a forwarding path (channel) between every two satellite nodes in the LEO satellite network based on topology information of subnets managed by respective local controllers, generates a flow table entry corresponding to each of the forwarding paths (channels), and sends the flow table entries to the local controllers (Liu: paragraphs 162-163 and claim 3). In addition, Liu teaches determining a first forwarding path from the source terminal to the destination terminal based on the source terminal information, the destination terminal information and pre-synchronized topology information of the LEO satellite network, and generating a first flow table entry (Liu: paragraphs 13-14). In addition, Liu teaches the LEO satellite network includes the control plane and a data plane. The control plane includes a central controller and a plurality of local controllers (Liu: paragraph 8).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention to use the teachings of Liu in the positioning method of Torimoto in order to determine forwarding paths between a source terminal and a destination terminal based on the obtained satellite topology information (Liu: paragraphs 13-14).
For claims 3 and 13 Torimoto in view of Liu teaches the method, wherein the obtaining the topology information of the satellite network (Liu: paragraph 163 “obtaining the topology of LEO satellite network”) comprises:
obtaining the topology information from the first user plane network element (Liu: paragraph 103 “obtained topology information includes user terminal information table”)
For claims 4 and 14 Torimoto in view of Liu teaches the method, wherein the obtaining the topology information of the satellite network (Liu: paragraph 163 “obtaining the topology of LEO satellite network”) comprises:
obtaining the topology information from a bearer network control plane network element Liu: paragraph 54 “The management plane performs the routing calculation to generate a flow table entry, which is to be sent to the data plane, based on the topology information of the entire network provided by the control plane”).
For claims 5 and 15 Torimoto in view of Liu teaches the method, wherein the method further comprises:
obtaining updated topology information of the satellite network (Liu: paragraph 89 “updating topology information”); and
selecting a second user plane network element based on the updated topology information of the satellite network, the identification information of the at least one satellite on which the at least one user plane network element is located, and the identification information of the satellite on which the access network device is located, wherein the second user plane network element is one of the at least one user plane network element, and the second user plane network element is different from the first user plane network element (as discussed in claim 1).
For claims 6 and 16 Torimoto in view of Liu teaches the method, wherein the selecting the first user plane network element based on the topology information, the identification information of the at least one satellite on which the at least one user plane network element is located, and the identification information of the satellite on which the access network device is located (as discussed in claim 1) further comprises:
selecting the first user plane network element based on first information, wherein the first information comprises at least one of location information of the at least one user plane network element (Liu: paragraph 5 “data plane control plane and a management plane” and as discussed in claim 1), (Torimoto: paragraph 134 serving gateway”), or .
5. Claims 2 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Torimoto et al. (US 2021/0231814 A1) in view of Liu et al. (US 2020/0343968 A1) further in view of Alvarez Dominguez et al. (US 2024/0333805 A1-Hereafter Alvarez).
For claim 2 Torimoto in view of Liu does not explicitly teach the method, wherein the obtaining the topology information of the satellite network comprises:
sending a subscription message to a network exposure network element (NEF), wherein the subscription message is used to subscribe to the topology information; and
receiving the topology information from the network exposure network element.
However, Alvarez teaches a next communication system may include may further include a network exposure function (NEF) entity (network exposure network element (Alvarez: Fig. 5 “NEF 410” and paragraph 12 “in the case of an NEF, the subscriber capability request may be a Nudm_EventExposure Request that has been triggered by an Nnef_EventExposure_Subscribe Request received at NEF from the content provider domain. The subscriber capability response may be a Nudm_EventExposure_Notify message”). In addition, Alvarez teaches the core network domain (topology information) may be configured to notify the content provider domain of core network events based on a subscription scheme… the subscriber capability request may be a subscription message defined in the subscription scheme ( e.g., in accordance with the 4G or 5G specifications defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, 3GPP) (Alvarez: paragraph 23). In addition, Alvarez teaches subscriber capability information include network topology, which may be stored in single processing core (e.g. “NEF”) (Alvarez: paragraph 55, Fig. 5).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention to use the teachings of Alvarez in the combined positioning method of Liu and Torimoto in order to centralize the topology information and topology information updates in NEF according to 3GPP definition of subscription scheme changes (Alvarez: paragraph 55, Fig. 5).
Allowable Subject Matter
6. Claims 7-10 and 17-20 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
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David M OVEISSI whose telephone number is (571) 270-3127. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8Am-5PM.
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/MANSOUR OVEISSI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
