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 action is responsive to claims filed on February 7, 2025. Claims 1-20 are pending and presented for examination.
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Specification
The specification filed on February 7, 2025 is objected to because the acronym USRP for the term User Equipment Route Selection Policy, referred to throughout the present application disclosure, appears to be a typo. According to 3GPP technical standard, the correct acronym for User Equipment Route Selection Policy is URSP. It is recommended to amend the acronym as suggested above. It is further noted that amending the specification as recommended does not introduce a new matter.
Claim Objections
Claims 5, 6, 8, 14, 15 & 17 are objected to because of the following informalities: According to the technical 3GPP standard, the correct acronym for User Equipment Route Selection Policy is URSP. It is recommended to amend the acronym USRP to URSP. Appropriate corrections are required where applicable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al “Lee”, US-PGPub. No. 20230136984 in view of Pateromichelakis et al “Pateromichelakis”, US-PGPub. No. 20230284078.
As per claims 1, 10 and 20, Lee teaches a method, a non-transitory computer readable medium and a user equipment (Fig. 9 – UE 900, Paragraph(s) [0038], [0201]), comprising:
a transceiver (Fig. 9 – transceiver 920, Paragraph(s) [0203]); and
one or more processors (Fig. 9 – processor 910, Paragraph(s) [0202]) configured to:
receive a message indicating a change in session capabilities, from a first session capability indicating one or more first services used in a first session to a second session capability indicating one or more second services to be used in a second session (Paragraph(s) [0048], [0056]0, [0060], [0079]; the network exposure function (NEF) 113 may provide a means for securely exposing services and capabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for, for example, third parties, internal exposure/re-exposure, application functionality, or edge computing. The NEF 113 may receive information (based on exposed capability (capabilities) of other NF(s)) from the other NF(s). The NEF 113 may store the received information as structured data by using a standardized interface to a data storage network function. In addition, Lee teaches when a session management (SM) policy association between the session management function (SMF) and the SM-PCF is established, the user equipment policy control function (UE-PCF) may transfer to the mobility management function (AMF), a request for notification of an session management (SM) policy association connection establishment request (Paragraph(s) [0107])), the first session corresponding to a first bearer within a first quality of service (QoS) slice (Paragraph(s) [0048]; the session management function (SMF) 105 may support functions, including session management (e.g., session establishment, modification, and termination including tunnel maintenance between the UPF 104 and the (R)AN 102 nodes, UE internet protocol (IP) address allocation and management, selection and control of user plane (UP) functions, traffic steering configuration for routing traffic to appropriate destinations in the UPF 104, termination of interfaces towards policy control functions, enforcement of policies and control portions of quality of service (QoS), etc. ) and associated with a first application identifier of an application (Table 1 “APPID”, Paragraph(s) [0066]; the application descriptor may include an open service interface definition (OSID) and an application ID (APPID));
configure a second application identifier for the application based on the second session capability (Paragraph(s) [0014], [0064-0066]; verifying whether a user equipment (UE) complies with user equipment route selection policy (URSP) in a cellular wireless communication system (5th generation (5G) system). In further details, Lee teaches the PCF 106 may receive information on packet flow from an application server and provide a function of determining policies, such as mobility management and session management. Specifically, the PCF 106 may support functions of, for example, supporting a unified policy framework to control network behavior, providing policy rules so that control plane function(s) (e.g., AMF, SMF, etc.) may enforce the policy rules, and implementing a front end for accessing relevant subscription information for policy determination in a user data repository (UDR) (Paragraph(s) [0047])); and
transmit, via the transceiver to a base station, traffic of the application, using the second application identifier, via the second session (Paragraph(s) [0038], [0048], [0064-0066]; the session management function (SMF) may provide a session management function, and when the UE has a plurality of sessions, each session may be managed by a different session management function (SMF). SMF 105 may support functions, including session management (e.g., session establishment, modification, and termination including tunnel maintenance between the UPF 104 and the (R)AN 102 nodes, UE internet protocol (IP) address allocation and management, selection and control of user plane (UP) functions, traffic steering configuration for routing traffic to appropriate destinations in the UPF 104, termination of interfaces towards policy control functions, etc.).
Lee fails to explicitly teach but Pateromichelakis teaches associating a first session with a first application and associating a second session with a second application (Paragraph(s) [0230]; the first session comprises a first application session and the second session comprises a second application session. Pateromichelakis further discloses receiving a request to manage the QoS of an end-to-end application session comprising a first session of a first UE connected to a first network and a second session of a second UE connected to a second network. Additionally, configuring a first QoS parameter for the first session of the first UE and a second QoS parameter for the second session of the second UE and receiving a trigger event related to the QoS change of the second QoS parameter (Paragraph(s) [0008])).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the applicants' invention to combine the teachings of Lee and Pateromichelakis to better manage and control multiple application sessions in order to satisfy application-specific session requirements (i.e. quality or service)) .
As per claims 2 and 11, Lee teaches wherein the application comprises a first application, the method further comprising:
identifying, by the user equipment, based on the second session capability, an active session used by a second application within a second QoS slice (Paragraph(s) [0048], [0054]); and
configuring, by the user equipment, the second application identifier responsive to identifying the active session (Paragraph(s) [0018], [0048]).
As per claims 3 and 12, Lee teaches wherein the active session includes a first QoS flow within the second QoS slice, the method further comprising:
requesting, by the user equipment, a second QoS flow within the second QoS slice for the first application (Paragraph(s) [0062], [0072-0077]).
As per claims 4 and 13, Lee teaches establishing, by the user equipment, the second session for the application with the base station, the second session corresponding to a second bearer for a second QoS slice (Paragraph(s) [0038], [0048]).
As per claims 5 and 14, Lee teaches receiving, by the user equipment from the base station, a configuration of user equipment route selection policy (USRP) rules from the base station, the USRP rules indicating one or more criterion for selecting application identifiers based on session capabilities and corresponding QoS slices (Paragraph(s) [0002], [0011]).
As per claims 6 and 15, Lee teaches wherein the user equipment configures the second application identifier based on the USRP rules (Paragraph(s) [0011]).
As per claims 7 and 16, Lee teaches wherein the message comprises a second message, the method further comprising:
receiving, by the user equipment, a first message indicating the first session capability (Paragraph(s) [0016]);
transmitting, by the user equipment to the base station, a request to establish the first session for the application based on the first session capability, the request including the first application identifier for the application (Paragraph(s) [0017], [0066]); and
establishing, by the user equipment with the base station, the first session within the first QoS slice, for the application (Paragraph(s) [0062]).
As per claims 8 and 17, Lee teaches wherein the base station comprises a first base station, the traffic is sent to a cell of the first base station (Paragraph(s) [0038]), and wherein the method further comprises:
maintaining, by the user equipment, the second application identifier for the application during a handover to a second cell of the first base station or a second base station (Paragraph(s) [0060-0062]);
receiving, by the user equipment, updated user equipment route selection policy (USRP) rules from the second cell (Paragraph(s) [0117-0118]); and
activating the second session within the second QoS slice based on the updated URSP rules (Paragraph(s) [0151], [0188]).
As per claims 9 and 18, Lee teaches wherein the user equipment comprises a first user equipment, and wherein the first user equipment receives the traffic for transmission to the base station from a second user equipment communicably coupled to the first user equipment (Paragraph(s) [0038], [0084]).
As per claim19, Lee teaches wherein the traffic is received from the user equipment, responsive to the application at least partially executing on the second user equipment and generating the traffic (Fig. 2, Paragraph(s) [0084], [0124]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Please refer to form PTO-892 (Notice of Reference Cited) for a list of relevant prior art.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMED A WASEL whose telephone number is (571) 272-2669. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri (8:00 am – 4:30 pm).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Glenton Burgess can be reached on (571)272-3949. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MOHAMED A. WASEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454
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