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 .
Claim 1, 18 have been amended.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-9, 11-19 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding for example claims 1, 18, it is unclear what the specific limitation is claiming “wherein measurement of the objective data is triggered:i) by the first user device in response to the subjective data that is generated in the first user device and wherein the measurement of the objective data by the first user device is triggered autonomously by the first user device as a result of the generation of the subjective data in the first user device without a request from the utility supply network, and ii) by the second user device autonomously in response to the subjective data that is received from the first user device”. The limitation before claims that objective data is a combination of both first and second. The further the claim states step i) only generates objective data for the first device. However, Step ii) does not specify what type of objective data is being measured. More specifically, regarding “and ii) by the second user device autonomously in response to the subjective data that is received from the first user device” it is unclear which objective data measurement the second step is triggering. Does the second user device autonomously only measure the second measurement of the objective data or both the first and second device of the objective data or the first device. It is unclear, thus indefinite.
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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1, 2-4, 15- 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schmidt et al. (US20150223092)in view of Adya et al. (US20060068769) in view of Austin et al.( US20140325019).
Regarding claim 1, Schmidt teaches A computer-implemented method of determining a severity of an incident in a utility supply network, the method comprising:
receiving an indication of the incident in the utility supply network ([0019] “in response to input received from the user or an application running on (i.e. being executed by) the user equipment, the user equipment may send this request to the MNO to trigger the channel measurement procedures instead of the MNO requesting the channel measurement procedures as done in FIG. 1. For reporting, other pieces of information may be added to these measurements as well, such as time stamps, location stamps, details about the service(s) being consumed, information about the (type of) application(s) being active, and so on”, (Examiner’s note: input received from the user is equivalent to indication of the incident, wireless network is equivalent to utility supply network);
receiving subjective data from a first user device connected to the utility supply network relating to user perception of performance of the utility supply network ([0019] “in response to input received from the user or an application running on (i.e. being executed by) the user equipment, the user equipment may send this request to the MNO to trigger the channel measurement procedures instead of the MNO requesting the channel measurement procedures as done in FIG. 1. For reporting, other pieces of information may be added to these measurements as well, such as time stamps, location stamps, details about the service(s) being consumed, information about the (type of) application(s) being active, and so on”, (Examiner’s note: input received from the user is equivalent to receiving subjective data).;
measuring, by the first user device ([0019] “in response to input received from the user or an application running on (i.e. being executed by) the user equipment, the user equipment may send this request to the MNO to trigger the channel measurement procedures instead of the MNO requesting the channel measurement procedures as done in FIG. 1. For reporting, other pieces of information may be added to these measurements as well, such as time stamps, location stamps, details about the service(s) being consumed, information about the (type of) application(s) being active, and so on”):
i) by the first user device in response to the subjective data that is generated in the first user device and wherein the measurement of the objective data by the first user device is triggered autonomously by the first user device as a result of the generation of the subjective data in the first user device without a request from the utility supply network ([0036] “the user equipment may be pre-configured to store relevant control information such as Open Mobile Alliance Device Management (OMA DM) Management Object (MO), for performing customer care measurements (which may comprise parts of the MDT procedure) by means of a configuration file, ([0068] “In an embodiment, the user 800 may be enabled to define trigger events with CM-A1 for these two types of measurements. The configuration message CM-A1 may include reporting details such as reporting interval and/or reporting amount, in the case of “immediate-MDT”, or logging details such as logging interval and/or logging duration, in the case of “logged-MDT”. If configured to do so, the user equipment 405 may perform filtering of measurement requests upon receipt of configuration message CM-A1 at CUE based on some predetermined filter criteria. The user equipment 405 may transmit customer care measurement results to an ENodeB with one of a “UEInformationResponse” RRC message to transfer the “LogMeasReport” IE to the base station (for logged-MDT) or a “MeasurementReport” RRC message to transfer the “MeasResults” IE to the base station (for Immediate-MDT)”),
communicating, by the first ([0068] “The user equipment 405 may transmit customer care measurement results to an ENodeB with one of a “UEInformationResponse” RRC message to transfer the “LogMeasReport” IE to the base station (for logged-MDT) or a “MeasurementReport” RRC message to transfer the “MeasResults” IE to the base station (for Immediate-MDT).”);
Schmidt clearly teaches measuring, by user device connected to the utility supply network in [0083] however Schmidt does not explicitly teach measuring, by the first user device and by a second user device connected to the utility supply network in the same local area as the first user device, objective data indicating the performance of the utility supply network being experienced by the first
Adya teaches measuring, by the first user device and by a second user device connected to the utility supply network in the same local area as the first user device ([0055-0057] “the client 504 sends the Snoop request packets at step 520 and the AP 502 sends the responses at step 522. The eavesdropping clients 510 log the requests and response times at steps 521 and 523 …The diagnostic client 504 can then report the client/AP/medium breakdown to the network administrator”, (Examiner’s Note: neighboring client is equivalent to same local area as the first user device),
objective data indicating the performance of the utility supply network being experienced by the first and the second user device ([0055-0057] “the client 504 sends the Snoop request packets at step 520 and the AP 502 sends the responses at step 522. The eavesdropping clients 510 log the requests and response times at steps 521 and 523 …The diagnostic client 504 can then report the client/AP/medium breakdown to the network administrator” … The client 504 also records the round trip times to the AP for these Snoop requests and responses along with the number of request packets for which it did not receive a response, e.g., the request or response was lost, at step 524.)
and ii) by the second user device autonomously in response to subjective data that is received from the first user device ([0054] “The DAP 502 periodically (say every 2 seconds, for example) sends Snoop request packets to the client 504 at step 506. When the client 504 receives a Snoop request packet, it immediately replies with a Snoop response message at step 508. The eavesdropping clients 510 log the time when they hear a Snoop request at step 512 and the first attempt by the client 504 to send the corresponding Snoop response packet at step 514, i.e., only the times of response packets for which the retransmission bit is clear are recorded”,(Examiner’s Note: periodically is equivalent to autonomously”, [0057] “At the end of the protocol, preferably all the eavesdropping clients 510 send the AP and client delay times to the diagnostic client 504. The difference between the round trip time reported by the client, and the sum of the delays at the client and the AP, (Examiner’s Note: AP and client delay times measured by eavesdropping clients are sent to diagnostic client 504 BRI as objective data measured by the second user device);
by the first and second user devices, the objective data measured by the first and second user devices ([0055-0057] “the client 504 sends the Snoop request packets at step 520 and the AP 502 sends the responses at step 522. The eavesdropping clients 510 log the requests and response times at steps 521 and 523 …The diagnostic client 504 can then report the client/AP/medium breakdown to the network administrator”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Schmidt to incorporate the teachings of Adya. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order increase the robustness of the network.
Adya does not explicitly teach and determining a severity of the incident based at least on the subjective data from the first and user device and the objective data from the first and second user devices.
Austin teaches and determining a severity of the incident based at least on the subjective data from the first and user device and the objective data from the first and second user devices([0083] “As indicated above, analysis component 144 receives data associated with a network performance incident from a set of devices 104 and analyzes the data. The data can include contents of report 110 and associated location (R) and time stamp (t) linked to the network performance incident. In the illustrated example embodiment, analysis component 144 includes an aggregation component 1406 that collects the data received from the set of devices 104 and also can acquire (receive, retrieve, etc.) network operation data from at least one functionality layer, such as operation layer(s) 160 or external layer(s) 170”) [0086] “As part of generation of network performance metrics, assessment component 1412 can compare submitted tickets for service in a given area and can normalize to the number of subscribers in the area that own or lease a device with a deployed (e.g., installed, tested, and active) incident report component (e.g., 106) to evaluate relative importance of problem areas. Such network performance metric can be employed for capital allocation or investment prioritization”, (Examiner’s Note: severity of the incident is equivalent to importance of problem areas ).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt, Adya to incorporate the teachings of Austin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Regarding claim 18, Schmidt teaches A tool to determine a severity of an incident in a utility supply network, the tool comprising:
an input configured to receive an indication of the incident in the utility supply network, subjective data from a first user device connected to the utility supply network relating to user perception of performance of the utility supply network, and objective data measured by the first user device ([0019] “in response to input received from the user or an application running on (i.e. being executed by) the user equipment, the user equipment may send this request to the MNO to trigger the channel measurement procedures instead of the MNO requesting the channel measurement procedures as done in FIG. 1. For reporting, other pieces of information may be added to these measurements as well, such as time stamps, location stamps, details about the service(s) being consumed, information about the (type of) application(s) being active, and so on”, (Examiner’s note: input received from the user is equivalent to indication of the incident and subjective data, wireless network is equivalent to utility supply network),
the objective data indicating the performance of the utility supply network being experienced by the first user device ([0019] “in response to input received from the user or an application running on (i.e. being executed by) the user equipment, the user equipment may send this request to the MNO to trigger the channel measurement procedures instead of the MNO requesting the channel measurement procedures as done in FIG. 1. For reporting, other pieces of information may be added to these measurements as well, such as time stamps, location stamps, details about the service(s) being consumed, information about the (type of) application(s) being active, and so on”):
i) by the first user device in response to the subjective data that is generated in the first user device and wherein the measurement of the objective data by the first user device is triggered autonomously by the first user device as a result of the generation of the subjective data in the first user device without a request from the utility supply network ([0036] “the user equipment may be pre-configured to store relevant control information such as Open Mobile Alliance Device Management (OMA DM) Management Object (MO), for performing customer care measurements (which may comprise parts of the MDT procedure) by means of a configuration file, ([0068] “In an embodiment, the user 800 may be enabled to define trigger events with CM-A1 for these two types of measurements. The configuration message CM-A1 may include reporting details such as reporting interval and/or reporting amount, in the case of “immediate-MDT”, or logging details such as logging interval and/or logging duration, in the case of “logged-MDT”. If configured to do so, the user equipment 405 may perform filtering of measurement requests upon receipt of configuration message CM-A1 at CUE based on some predetermined filter criteria. The user equipment 405 may transmit customer care measurement results to an ENodeB with one of a “UEInformationResponse” RRC message to transfer the “LogMeasReport” IE to the base station (for logged-MDT) or a “MeasurementReport” RRC message to transfer the “MeasResults” IE to the base station (for Immediate-MDT)”),
Schmidt does not explicitly teach objective data measured by the first user device and by a second user device, the objective data indicating the performance of the utility supply network being experienced by the first user device and the second user device and ii) the second user device autonomously in response to the subjective data that is received from the first user device,
and a processor configured to determine a severity of the incident based at least on the subjective data from the first user device and the objective data received at the input from the first and second user devices.
Adya teaches objective data measured by the first user device and by a second user device ([0055-0057] “the client 504 sends the Snoop request packets at step 520 and the AP 502 sends the responses at step 522. The eavesdropping clients 510 log the requests and response times at steps 521 and 523 …The diagnostic client 504 can then report the client/AP/medium breakdown to the network administrator”)
the objective data indicating the performance of the utility supply network being experienced by the first user device and the second user device ([0055-0057] “the client 504 sends the Snoop request packets at step 520 and the AP 502 sends the responses at step 522. The eavesdropping clients 510 log the requests and response times at steps 521 and 523 …The diagnostic client 504 can then report the client/AP/medium breakdown to the network administrator”)
and ii) the second user device autonomously in response to the subjective data that is received from the first user device([0054] “The DAP 502 periodically (say every 2 seconds, for example) sends Snoop request packets to the client 504 at step 506. When the client 504 receives a Snoop request packet, it immediately replies with a Snoop response message at step 508. The eavesdropping clients 510 log the time when they hear a Snoop request at step 512 and the first attempt by the client 504 to send the corresponding Snoop response packet at step 514, i.e., only the times of response packets for which the retransmission bit is clear are recorded”,(Examiner’s Note: periodically is equivalent to autonomously”, [0057] “At the end of the protocol, preferably all the eavesdropping clients 510 send the AP and client delay times to the diagnostic client 504. The difference between the round trip time reported by the client, and the sum of the delays at the client and the AP, (Examiner’s Note: AP and client delay times measured by eavesdropping clients are sent to diagnostic client 504 BRI as objective data measured by the second user device).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Schmidt to incorporate the teachings of Adya. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order increase the robustness of the network.
Adya does not explicitly teach and a processor configured to determine a severity of the incident based at least on the subjective data from the first user device and the objective data received at the input from the first and second user devices.
Austin teaches and a processor ([0021] “As used in this application, the terms “component,” “system,” “platform,” “interface,” “node,” “layer,” “tier” and the like are intended to refer to a computer-related entity or an entity related to an operational apparatus with one or more specific functionalities, wherein the entity can be either hardware, a combination of hardware and software, software, or software in execution. As an example, a component can be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, a processor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or a computer”) configured to determine a severity of the incident based at least on the subjective data from the first user device and the objective data received at the input from the first and second user devices(([0083] “As indicated above, analysis component 144 receives data associated with a network performance incident from a set of devices 104 and analyzes the data. The data can include contents of report 110 and associated location (R) and time stamp (t) linked to the network performance incident. In the illustrated example embodiment, analysis component 144 includes an aggregation component 1406 that collects the data received from the set of devices 104 and also can acquire (receive, retrieve, etc.) network operation data from at least one functionality layer, such as operation layer(s) 160 or external layer(s) 170”,[0086] “As part of generation of network performance metrics, assessment component 1412 can compare submitted tickets for service in a given area and can normalize to the number of subscribers in the area that own or lease a device with a deployed (e.g., installed, tested, and active) incident report component (e.g., 106) to evaluate relative importance of problem areas. Such network performance metric can be employed for capital allocation or investment prioritization”, (Examiner’s Note: severity of the incident is equivalent to importance of problem areas).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Schmidt to incorporate the teachings of Austin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Regarding claim 19, Schmidt does not explicitly teach a computer readable storage medium comprising instructions which when executed by a processor cause the processor to carry out a method according to claim 1.
Austin teaches a computer readable storage medium comprising instructions which when executed by a processor cause the processor to carry out a method ([0042-0043] “Server(s) 156 can include at least one or more processors (not shown) configured to enable or that enable, at least in part, the functionality of feedback system 140, and components therein. To that end, at least the one or more processors can execute one or more sets of code instructions (not shown) stored in memory 152 (or other computer-readable storage medium)… can carry out one or more of the example methods disclosed herein; such code instructions provide a computer-executable or machine-executable framework to enact such example methods and enable at least a portion of the functionality of feedback system 140 described herein. Server(s) also can include an input/output (I/O) interface that enables communication with an external networked apparatus (a device, a server, a memory, etc.)”)according to claim 1 (see mapping of claim 1).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt, Adya to incorporate the teachings of Austin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Regarding claim 2,Schmidt, Adya does not teach wherein the subjective data is associated with a cluster of users associated with the incident, wherein the cluster of users associated with the incident is based on at least one of i) users in a geographic area associated with the incident and ii) users supplied by network equipment associated with the incident.
Austin teaches wherein the subjective data is associated with a cluster of users associated with the incident ([0087] “As part of analysis of data related to report of network performance incidents, analysis component, via assessment component 1412, for example, can produce clusters of reported incidents”), wherein the cluster of users associated with the incident is based on at least one of i) users in a geographic area associated with the incident ([0087] “within a predetermined distance of each other can be part of a cluster”) and ii) users supplied by network equipment associated with the incident ([0087] “As another example, network performance incidents can be mapped to their closest base station (or cell tower) to form clusters of incidents that spatially coincide with deployed base stations”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt, Adya to incorporate the teachings of Austin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Regarding claim 3, Schmidt teaches wherein the subjective data comprises status checks on the performance of the utility supply network by users of the cluster ([0064] “In an embodiment, the user equipment 405 may perform an MDT criteria check 608 of the channel measurements. The user equipment 405 may now start the collection of MDT user equipment measurements 609 (e.g., in RRC_Connected mode of operation)”, [0015] “he MNO may determine when to perform channel measurements (e.g., signal strength, data throughput) in order to generate a coverage map of a geographical area”)).
Regarding claim 4, Schmidt, Adya, does not explicitly teaches wherein the severity of the incident is based on either: the number of users in the cluster submitting status; or the number of users in the cluster submitting status checks as a proportion of the total number of users associated with the cluster,
wherein the number of users associated with the cluster is the number of users typically supplied by network equipment associated with the incident or the number of users supplied by the network equipment at the time of the incident.
Austin teaches wherein the severity of the incident is based on either: the number of users in the cluster submitting status ([0086] “As part of generation of network performance metrics, assessment component 1412 can compare submitted tickets for service in a given area and can normalize to the number of subscribers in the area that own or lease a device with a deployed (e.g., installed, tested, and active) incident report component (e.g., 106) to evaluate relative importance of problem areas. Such network performance metric can be employed for capital allocation or investment prioritization”, (Examiner’s Note: severity of the incident is equivalent to importance of problem areas); or the number of users in the cluster submitting status checks as a proportion of the total number of users associated with the cluster,
wherein the number of users associated with the cluster is the number of users typically supplied by network equipment associated with the incident ([0086] “As part of generation of network performance metrics, assessment component 1412 can compare submitted tickets for service in a given area and can normalize to the number of subscribers in the area that own or lease a device with a deployed (e.g., installed, tested, and active) incident report component (e.g., 106) to evaluate relative importance of problem areas. Such network performance metric can be employed for capital allocation or investment prioritization”, (Examiner’s Note: severity of the incident is equivalent to importance of problem areas) or the number of users supplied by the network equipment at the time of the incident.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt, Adya to incorporate the teachings of Austin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Regarding claim 15, Schmidt teaches wherein the incident is one or more of: a fault, known problem or outage with the utility supply network or equipment connected to the utility supply network ([0019] “The present embodiments of measurement triggers for customer care may enable a user or application on the user equipment to manually or automatically trigger a request for channel measurements to be made either by the user equipment (e.g., on downlink channels) and/or by the base station (e.g., on uplink channels) at the present time and geographical location where a problem occurred”); an alarm or warning associated with equipment connected to the utility supply network; a maintenance event or an upgrade of equipment connected to the utility supply network; a cluster of users requesting status checks on the performance of the utility supply network or submitting complaints about the performance of the utility supply network; and a network measurement-derived indication of a problem with the utility supply network ([0019] “The present embodiments of measurement triggers for customer care may enable a user or application on the user equipment to manually or automatically trigger a request for channel measurements to be made either by the user equipment (e.g., on downlink channels) and/or by the base station (e.g., on uplink channels) at the present time and geographical location where a problem occurred”).
Regarding claim 16, Schmidt teaches wherein the utility supply network is a communications network, such as a mobile communications network ([0023] “The illustrated network 200 may be a cellular telephone network. For example, the cellular telephone network may use protocols for Global System for Mobile communication (GSM), for Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), for Long-Term-Evolution (LTE), or for LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), code-division multiple access (CDMA), frequency-division multiple access (FDMA), or time-division multiple access (TDMA)”).
Regarding claim 17, Schmidt does not teach wherein measurements of the performance of the utility supply network comprise at least one of: signal strength received at a mobile device connected to the mobile communications network ([0015] “The MNO may determine when to perform channel measurements (e.g., signal strength, data throughput) in order to generate a coverage map of a geographical area. Thus, the MNO requests the user equipment to perform the channel measurements at its present location, time stamp the resulting measurements, and send the results back to the MNO. These measurements may be combined with the measurements performed by a base station and the entire report sent to the core network for assessment. Such a process may be referred to in the art as Minimization of Drive Tests (MDT)”), transmitter output power, transmitted data rates, latency, voice quality, bit error rate, and SINAD.
Claim(s) 5-6, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schmidt in view of Adya, further in view of Austin, further in view of Tiwari et al(US 20180124097 herein Tiwari2).
Regarding claim 5, Schmidt, Adya does not explicitly teach further comprising: receiving outage data indicating a level of outage on the utility supply network; and determining the severity of the incident based on the number of users in the cluster submitting status checks and the level of outage given by the outage information.
Austin teaches determining the severity of the incident based on the number of users in the cluster submitting status checks.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Schmidt to incorporate the teachings of Austin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Austin does not teaches further comprising: receiving outage data indicating a level of outage on the utility supply network; the level of outage given by the outage information.
However, Tiwari2 teaches further comprising: receiving outage data indicating a level of outage on the utility supply network ([0098] “whether or not the reported outage is an actual outage. An outage that has been verified by a network operator may be considered to be an actual outage. For example, a potential outage may occur in a network device, which is then automatically reported into a fault management system.;
number of users in the cluster submitting status checks and the level of outage given by the outage information ([0062] “the dashboard 802 lists the services running on the selected device, and the number of customers using each respective service. In addition, the dashboard 802 shows the total number of customer that would be affected if the network device were to fail, [0084] “Information on device faults includes device outages data that provides information about outages that occurred on or with the network device. Outages may include outright failures as well as situations where the network device was technically operational but operated below a threshold performance level. Information on device performance includes device level data, which describes the behavior of one or more performance metrics of the network device”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt, Adya, Austin to incorporate the teachings of Tiwari2. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to minimize outages within the network.
Regarding claim 6, Schmidt, Adya does not teach wherein the outage data indicates either: a known outage on the utility supply network and the severity is increased in response to the known outage; or the outage data indicates no known outage on the utility supply network and the severity is decreased in response to there being no known outage.
Austin teaches wherein the data indicates either: a known on the utility supply network and the severity is increased in response to the known ([0086] “As part of generation of network performance metrics, assessment component 1412 can compare submitted tickets for service in a given area and can normalize to the number of subscribers in the area that own or lease a device with a deployed (e.g., installed, tested, and active) incident report component (e.g., 106) to evaluate relative importance of problem areas. Such network performance metric can be employed for capital allocation or investment prioritization, [0087] “Clusters can be categorized according to (A) clusters in an area with previously available information related to a network performance problem, e.g., “known problem”, and (B) remainder clusters. As a result of such categorization, or filtering, provides clusters in areas with network performance problems for which network resources can be allocated to indentify a solution”);
or the data indicates no known on the utility supply network and the severity is decreased in response to there being no known.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt, Adya to incorporate the teachings of Austin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Austin does not explicitly teach outage.
However, Tiwari2 teaches outage ( [0084] “Information on device faults includes device outages data that provides information about outages that occurred on or with the network device. Outages may include outright failures as well as situations where the network device was technically operational but operated below a threshold performance level. Information on device performance includes device level data, which describes the behavior of one or more performance metrics of the network device”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt, Austin to incorporate the teachings of Tiwari2. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to minimize outages within the network.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schmidt, in view of Adya further in view of Austin further in view of LaButte et al. (US 20030055804).
Regarding claim 7, Schmidt, Adya does not teach wherein determining the severity of the incident comprises comparing the number of users in the cluster submitting status checks against a plurality of thresholds, wherein the number of users in the cluster submitting status checks exceeding a given threshold of the plurality of thresholds assigns one of a plurality of severity levels to the incident, wherein the plurality of severity levels comprise a priority level for urgent incidents and priority level for incidents investigable during routine maintenance.
Austin teaches wherein determining the severity of the incident comprises comparing the number of users in the cluster submitting status checks against a plurality of thresholds ([0087] “For instance, for the base station, assessment component 1412 can monitor temporal evolution of number of reports and, based on a set of rules, can identify a surge or “spike” in number of reports and generate an alarm, which report component 1422 can provide to operation layer(s) 160 (not shown in FIG. 14A), for example. Based at least on the alarm, one or more components in operation layer(s) 160 can generate a service ticket”),
wherein the number of users in the cluster submitting status checks ([0086] “As part of generation of network performance metrics, assessment component 1412 can compare submitted tickets for service in a given area and can normalize to the number of subscribers in the area that own or lease a device with a deployed (e.g., installed, tested, and active) incident report component (e.g., 106) to evaluate relative importance of problem areas”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt, Adya to incorporate the teachings of Austin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Austin does not teach number of users exceeding a given threshold of the plurality of thresholds assigns one of a plurality of severity levels to the incident,
wherein the plurality of severity levels comprise a severity level for urgent incidents and severity level for incidents investigable during routine maintenance.
However, LaButtee teaches number of users exceeding a given threshold of the plurality of thresholds assigns one of a plurality of severity levels to the incident ([0069] “Severity levels can range from 1 (most severe) to 4 (least severe). Factors used to determine the severity levels include things such as: Number of customers affected by the condition; Type of service being disrupted; Length of the outage; and Availability of a bypass”),
wherein the plurality of severity levels comprise a severity level for urgent incidents and severity level for incidents investigable during routine maintenance ([0070] “TABLE 3 Severity Description 1 `Emergency` This is a major outage affecting a large number of customers. Critical business commitments cannot be met. 2 `Urgent` A system or application is usable, but with severe restrictions. Performance is severely degraded. 3 `Routine` This type of problem must be resolved, but leaving it unresolved does not affect service level agreements. A small number of users may be affected. 4 `Low Impact` This problem is not directly affecting the user's productivity, and is usually confined to an individual user”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt Adya, and Austin to incorporate the teachings of LaButtee. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Claim(s) 8, 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schmidt, in view of Adya, further in view of Austin further in view of Hofmann (US 9297723).
Regarding claim 8, Schmidt, Adya, Austin does not explicitly teach further comprising modifying the severity of the incident based on at least one of: accessibility of a site associated with the incident; the number and/or importance of users of the utility supply network predicted to be affected by the incident; and the number of items of network equipment disrupted by the incident.
Hofmann teaches further comprising modifying the severity of the incident based on at least one of: accessibility of a site associated with the incident; the number and/or importance of users of the utility supply network predicted to be affected by the incident (col 16 col 30-40 “For example, the tracking system 110 may determine that there is a high severity to restore power to a hospital or fire station and to certain customers that provide a large source of revenue for the utility. The tracking system 110 may calculate a customer value for individual customers in the service area. The customer value may be estimated based on factors such as income tax and property tax data, census data, Voting records, customer outage history, and/or electric usage patterns”); and the number of items of network equipment disrupted by the incident.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt, Adya, Austin to incorporate the teachings of Hofmann. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Regarding claim 9, Schmidt, Adya does not explicitly teach wherein the severity is determined by evaluating, using a decision-tree, one or more of: subjective data, objective data and outage data.
Austin teaches wherein the severity is determined by evaluating, using a decision-tree ([0090] “Artificial intelligence techniques typically apply advanced mathematical algorithms—e.g., decision trees, neural networks, regression analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) for feature and pattern extraction, cluster analysis, genetic algorithm, or reinforced learning—to a data set”), one or more of: subjective data, objective data and outage data ([0086] “s part of generation of network performance metrics, assessment component 1412 can compare submitted tickets for service in a given area and can normalize to the number of subscribers in the area that own or lease a device with a deployed (e.g., installed, tested, and active) incident report component (e.g., 106) to evaluate relative importance of problem areas. Such network performance metric can be employed for capital allocation or investment prioritization”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Schmidt, Adya to incorporate the teachings of Austin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Claim(s) 11-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schmidt in view of Adya, further in view of Austin, further in view of Hofmann as applied to claim 8, 9 above, and further in view of LaButtee.
Regarding claim 11, Schmidt, Adya, Austin, Hofmann does not teach wherein the severity of the incident is based on a level of disruption to the performance of the utility supply network indicated by the objective data.
However, LaButtee teaches wherein the severity of the incident is based on a level of disruption to the performance of the utility supply network indicated by the objective data ([0070] “TABLE 3 Severity Description 1 `Emergency` This is a major outage affecting a large number of customers. Critical business commitments cannot be met. 2 `Urgent` A system or application is usable, but with severe restrictions. Performance is severely degraded. 3 `Routine` This type of problem must be resolved, but leaving it unresolved does not affect service level agreements. A small number of users may be affected. 4 `Low Impact` This problem is not directly affecting the user's productivity, and is usually confined to an individual user”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt, Adya, Austin, Hofmann to incorporate the teachings of LaButtee. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Regarding claim 12, Schmidt, Adya, Austin, Hofmann does not teach wherein the severity of the incident is decreased in response to the objective data indicating a lower level of disruption and the severity of the incident is increased in response to the objective data indicating a higher level of disruption.
However, LaButtee teaches wherein the severity of the incident is decreased in response to the objective data indicating a lower level of disruption ([0070] Table 3 … 3 `Routine` This type of problem must be resolved, but leaving it unresolved does not affect service level agreements. A small number of users may be affected. 4 `Low Impact` This problem is not directly affecting the user's productivity, and is usually confined to an individual user”) and the severity of the incident is increased in response to the objective data indicating a higher level of disruption ([0073] “Escalation is a special type of notification that indicates that a problem is not meeting the target time for its resolution or its bypass (if possible). This is a signal to management that additional attention is required to restore the affected service”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Schmidt,Adya, Austin, Hofmann to incorporate the teachings of LaButtee. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Regarding claim 13, Schmidt, Adya, does not teach wherein the level of disruption is determined through comparison between the objective data and historical objective data.
However, Austin teaches wherein the level of disruption is determined through comparison between the objective data and historical objective data ([0086] “As part of generation of network performance metrics, assessment component 1412 can compare submitted tickets for service in a given area and can normalize to the number of subscribers in the area that own or lease a device with a deployed (e.g., installed, tested, and active) incident report component (e.g., 106) to evaluate relative importance of problem areas. Such network performance metric can be employed for capital allocation or investment prioritization. In addition, data collected through network performance incident reports from customers in a specific area, [0089] “Intelligent component 1420 also can exploit artificial intelligence (AI) methods to infer (e.g., reason and draw a conclusion based upon a set of metrics, arguments, or known outcomes in controlled scenarios) network performance incident(s) based at least on historical data of network performance incidents in a specific area or for a specific group of subscribers”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Schmidt, Adya to incorporate the teachings of Austin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Regarding claim 14, Schmidt, Adya does not teach wherein the historical objective data is for a time of day corresponding with the time of day associated with the incident.
However, Austin teaches wherein the historical objective data is for a time of day corresponding with the time of day associated with the incident ([0085] “In another aspect, from data collected from measured pilot signals at a time of an incident or after an incident, assessment component 1412 can determine operational parameters of a set of one or more competing network operators and retain such information in respective one or more network intelligence storage, e.g., network intelligence 1434 th in memory element 1432”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Schmidt, Adya to incorporate the teachings of Austin. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to more efficiently fix network issues.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 08/18/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant’s Argument
This does not happen autonomously as now recited in the Applicant's independent claims. That is because in Adya, any objective data is explicitly requested by a human operative and therefore cannot be autonomously triggered.
Examiner’s Response
Examiner respectfully disagrees. See updated rejection. The above claim limitation now is relied upon Schmidt in view of Adya, further in view Austin.
More specifically regarding Adya [0045] “The detection phase 308 is preferably performed by the diagnostic client 302, which comprises two lightweight components: a proactive/passive monitoring component 314 and a reactive diagnosing component 316. The monitoring component 314 runs in the background at the client and informs the diagnosing component 316 when it detects connections experiencing poor performance. At this point, the diagnosing component 316 analyzes the connections and outputs a report that gives a breakdown of the delays, i.e., the extent of the delays in the wired and the wireless part, and for the latter, a further breakdown into delays at the client 318, AP 320, and the medium 322 and 324”. Furthermore, [0054] “EDEN proceeds in two phases, described now with reference to FIG. 5. In the first phase, the DAP 502 to which the client 504 is associated estimates the delay at the client 504. The DAP 502 periodically (say every 2 seconds, for example) sends Snoop request packets to the client 504 at step 506 … The eavesdropping clients 510 log the time when they hear a Snoop request at step 512 and the first attempt by the client 504 to send the corresponding Snoop response packet at step 514, i.e., only the times of response packets for which the retransmission bit is clear are recorded”)
Periodically, performing the measurement and recording the measurement for the eavesdropping clients every 2 seconds is BRI as measurement done autonomously.
Applicant’s Argument 2
In other words, the neighbouring devices in Adya only report what the (first) user device is experiencing of the network and not what the neighbouring devices themselves are experiencing of the network.
Examiner’s Response 2
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Adeya clearly shows [0054-57] “At the end of the protocol, preferably all the eavesdropping clients 510 send the AP and client delay times to the diagnostic client 504. The difference between the round trip time reported by the client, and the sum of the delays at the client and the AP, approximates the sum of the delay experienced by the packet in the forward and backward wireless link. The diagnostic client 504 can then report the client/AP/medium breakdown to the network administrator; it can also report the percentage of unacknowledged request packets as an indicator of the network-level loss rate on the wireless link.”. Objective data experienced by both a first and second user device. For example, RTT includes the eavesdropping devices because in Fig 5 snooping request are traveling through these eavesdropping device from the AP to the client.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KEITH TRAN-DANH FOLLANSBEE whose telephone number is (571)272-3071. The examiner can normally be reached 10am -6 pm M-Th.
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/K.T.F./Examiner, Art Unit 2411
/DERRICK W FERRIS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2411