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 .
Claims StatusClaims 1-20 are pending and have been rejected.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/18/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. KR10-2022-0119238, filed on 09/21/2022 and parent Application No. KR10-2023-0085656, filed on 07/03/2023.
Claim Objections
Claim 9 is objected to because of the following informalities: layerto. Appropriate correction is required. Claim 15 is objected to because of the following informalities: missing period at the end of the claim. Appropriate correction is required.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being unpatentable by Park et al. (U.S. Publication 2021/0360569), hereinafter “Park”.
As to claims 1, 10 & 17, Park discloses an operation method of a terminal, a chipset mounted to a terminal and an apparatus for terminal, comprising: a transceiver (Park, see [0316], transceiver);
at least one processor (Park, see [0316], processor);
at least one memory configured to store instructions and operably electrically connectable to the at least one processor (Park, see [0316], the memory is connected to the processor, and can store various forms of information and/or instructions), wherein operations performed based on the instructions executed by the at least one processor comprise: operating a Mobility Management (MM) back-off timer or a Session Management (SM) back-off timer (Park, see [0242], AMF provides a value of a back-off timer (e.g., T3346) through a mobility management message); and stopping or ignoring the MM back-off timer or the SM back-off timer when transmission of industrial traffic is required (Park, see [0230], timer can be stopped), and transmitting SM signaling or MM signaling, wherein the SM signaling or the MM signaling comprises information indicating ignoring congestion control or exception to the congestion control (Park, see [0244], the congestion control, the network provides the UE with a reject message, including a cause value (cause #22) indicative of the congestion situation and a value of the back-off timer (e.g., T3346), in response to a mobility management request from the UE). As to claims 2, 11 & 18, Park discloses everything disclosed in claims 1, 10 & 17, wherein the industrial traffic comprises traffic for time sensitive network (TSN), time-sensitive communication (TSC), deterministic networking (DetNet), ultra- reliable low latency communication (URLLC), or industrial Internet of things (IIoT) (Park, see [0341-0342], smart networks utilizing industrial IoT).
As to claim 3, 12 & 19, Park discloses everything disclosed in 1, 10 & 17, wherein the industrial traffic comprises urgent industrial traffic or important industrial traffic (Park, [0342], levels of reliability and latency are essential for smart grid control, industrial automation).
As to claims 4 & 13, Park discloses everything disclosed in claims 1 & 10, wherein the SM signaling comprises a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) Session Establishment Request message, a PDU Session Modification Request message, a PDU Session Release Request message, or a Non-Access Stratum (NAS) message (Park, see [0053], NAS entity for session management (SM)).
As to claims 5 & 14, Park discloses everything disclosed in claims 1 & 10, wherein the MM signaling comprises a Registration Request message, a Service Request message, a Deregistration Request message, or an uplink (UL) Non- Access Stratum (NAS) Transport message (Park, see [0123-0124], AMF includes an information request message, which includes complete registration request information for requesting SUPI and MM context of the UE).
As to claims 6 & 15, Park discloses everything disclosed in claims 1 & 10, further comprising receiving a NAS reject message comprising a value for the MM back-off timer or a value for the SM back-off timer (Park, see [0239], when an NAS signaling connection is established for the UE before the implicit de-registration timer for the UE expires. See [0244], the network provides the UE with a reject message, including a cause value (cause #22) indicative of the congestion situation and a value of the back-off timer (e.g., T3346), in response to a mobility management request from the UE. See [0290], the AMF set only a value of the back-off timer (e.g., T3346) and then transmit a reject message, including the set value of the back-off timer).
As to claim 7, Park discloses everything disclosed in claim 6, wherein the NAS reject message comprises a PDU Session Establishment Reject message, a PDU Session Modification Reject message or a PDU Session Release Reject message (Park, see [0160], the UE transmits a NAS message to the AMF. The message may include Single-Network Slice Selection Assistance Information (S-NSSAI), DNN, PDU session ID, a Request type).
As to claim 8, Park discloses everything disclosed in claim 6, wherein the NAS reject message comprises a registration reject message, a service reject message or a deregistration reject message (Park, see [0166], the NAS message being transmitted by the UE. See [0274], the AMF 410 transmits a reject message in response to a service request message of the UE. See [0299], the reject message can include one or more of a registration reject message and a service reject message).
As to claims 9, 16 & 20, Park discloses everything disclosed in claims 1, 10 & 17, wherein the terminal comprises an application layer, a NAS layer, and a radio resource control (RRC) layer to transmit the SM signaling or the MM signaling, wherein the NAS layer performs transmitting information indicating the industrial traffic or information indicating ignoring the congestion control to the RRC layer or exception to the congestion control to the RRC layer, and wherein the RRC layer performs transmitting an RRC message to a base station by skipping a check for access control based on the information indicating the industrial traffic or the information indicating the ignoring the congestion control or the exception to the congestion control (Park, see [0051], the RRC layer is defined only in the control plane and is in charge of control of logical channels, transport channels, and physical channels related to configuration, reconfiguration and release of radio bearers. See [0244], the congestion control, the network provides the UE with a reject message, including a cause value (cause #22) indicative of the congestion situation and a value of the back-off timer (e.g., T3346), in response to a mobility management request from the UE).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure. This includes: U.S. Publication 2019/0357118, which describes controlling congestion when congestion occurs in network.
U.S. Publication 2024/0129794, which describes network congestion control.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TANIA M PENA-SANTANA whose telephone number is (571)270-0627. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8am to 4pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nicholas R Taylor can be reached at 5712723889. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TANIA M PENA-SANTANA/Examiner, Art Unit 2443 /CHRISTOPHER B ROBINSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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