| CPC H04L 1/1642 (2013.01) [H04L 1/08 (2013.01); H04L 5/0078 (2013.01); H04W 28/06 (2013.01)] | 20 Claims |

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1. A method for identifying and discarding a retransmitted duplicate message, the method comprising:
receiving, at a user plane function (UPF) component from a control plane function, a message tagged with a sequence number during one of a first timing window and a second timing window, wherein the first and second timing windows are consecutive recurring timing windows in a network;
sending a response to the message from the UPF to the control plane function during one of the timing windows,
marking the sequence number with the timing window of the response, wherein the timing of the response occurs during the first or the second timing window;
maintaining a record of the marked sequence number;
utilizing the record to identify and discard the retransmitted duplicate message by identifying a new message as a retransmitted duplicate message upon finding the new message is tagged with the marked sequence number;
after the first timing window expires, if the first timing window is a recurring timing window and the marking on the sequence number is associated with the response occurring during the second timing window, deleting the record of the marked sequence number associated with the response occurring during the second timing window; and
after the second timing window expires, if the marking on the sequence number is associated with the response occurring during the first timing window, deleting the record of the marked sequence number associated with the response occurring during the first timing window.
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