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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 4/13/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
This office action has been changed in response to the amendment filed on 4/13/2026.
Claims 1, 8, 15 and 21 have been amended. Claims 26 and 27 have been newly added.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claims have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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, 15, 17, 21-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vakeesar et al. (WO2020/114569A1 hereinafter, Vakeesar) in view of Raymond (US-2022/0303855).
Regarding claim 1, Vakeesar teaches an information processing device (Fig. 9 [150]) comprising a processor (Fig. 9 [920]) configured to:
acquire, from Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) (Fig. 1 [130]) which is different from the information processing device (Fig. 1 [150]), information that includes handover information between a UE and a base station; (Page 20 lines 25-27 “Additionally, a UE specific Handover Restriction list, History Information, UE Registration Area can be passed on to the prediction function network node 150 by the AMF 130/ SMF”)
and predict the cells that will encounter the UE based on the location and intended trajectory. (Fig. 5 [Step 15] and Page 20 line 33 through Page 21 line 14)
Vakeesar differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting identify, based on the information, an order of locations through which the UE has moved, each of the locations being defined one by one for each period during which the UE stays in a cell and predict location information of the UE and movement direction information of the UE.
In an analogous art, Raymond teaches an information processing device (Fig. 3 [102], Page 5 [0072] and Fig. 7 [700]) comprising a processor (Fig. 7 [703]) configured to:
acquire information that includes handover information between a UE and a base station; (Page 3 [0057] “The prediction engine 304 can receive data corresponding to past state 402 and current state 404 of the communication network 110 (e.g., including monitored travel patterns of user devices and associated handovers, quality of service metrics, cell resource utilization, or the like)”)
identify, based on the information, an order of locations through which the UE has moved, each of the locations being defined one by one for each period during which the UE stays in a cell (Page 3 [0057] “The prediction engine 304 can receive data corresponding to past state 402 and current state 404 of the communication network 110 (e.g., including monitored travel patterns of user devices and associated handovers” i.e. where the vehicle was and is now provides an order of positions); and
predict location information of the UE and movement direction information of the UE. (Page 3 [0057] “use trained machine learning or other AI model(s) to output predicted state 406 of the communication network 110 (e.g., including estimated travel patterns of user devices and associated handovers, estimated quality of service metrics, estimated cell resource utilization, or the like).” and Pages 3-4 [0060])
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Vakeesar after modifying it to incorporate the ability to identify an order of locations through which the UE has moved and predict location information of the UE and movement direction information of the UE of Raymond since it enables the network to prepare for handovers by pre-allocating resources for the expected continuation of a session for a user device. (Raymond Page 3 [0050])
Regarding claim 3, Vakeesar in view of Raymond teaches wherein the handover information includes information on a history of switching between a plurality of base stations, one of which is the base station as the vehicle moves. (Vakeesar Page 20 lines 25-27 “Additionally, a UE specific Handover Restriction list, History Information, UE Registration Area can be passed on to the prediction function network node 150 by the AMF 130/ SMF” and Raymond Page 3 [0057] “The prediction engine 304 can receive data corresponding to past state 402 and current state 404 of the communication network 110 (e.g., including monitored travel patterns of user devices and associated handovers, quality of service metrics, cell resource utilization, or the like)”)
Regarding claims 15 and 17, the limitations of claims 15 and 17 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claims 1 and 3. (See additionally Vakeesar Page 28 line 31 through Page 29 line 6 and Raymond Claim 16 and Page 6 [0082])
Regarding claim 21, the limitations of claim 21 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claim 1. See additionally Vakeesar Page 18 line 35 through Page 19 line 6.
Regarding claim 22, Vakeesar in view of Raymond teaches wherein the processor is configured to determine the movement direction information of the UE based on the order. (Vakeesar Page 20 lines 25-27 “Additionally, a UE specific Handover Restriction list, History Information, UE Registration Area can be passed on to the prediction function network node 150 by the AMF 130/ SMF” and Raymond Page 3 [0057] “The prediction engine 304 can receive data corresponding to past state 402 and current state 404 of the communication network 110 (e.g., including monitored travel patterns of user devices and associated handovers” i.e. where the vehicle was and is now provides an order of positions)
Regarding claims 23-25, the limitations of claims 23-25 are rejected as being the same reasons set forth above in claim 22.
Claims 8 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Raymond (US-2022/0303855) in view of Vakeesar et al. (WO2020/114569A1 hereinafter, Vakeesar).
Regarding claim 8, Raymond teaches an information processing system (Fig. 1) comprising:
a first device (Fig. 1 [102]) provided with a storage unit (Fig. 7 [701]) and a first processor (Fig. 7 [703]) configured to acquire information that includes handover information between a UE and a base station and store the handover information in the first storage unit; (Page 3 [0057] “The prediction engine 304 can receive data corresponding to past state 402 and current state 404 of the communication network 110 (e.g., including monitored travel patterns of user devices and associated handovers, quality of service metrics, cell resource utilization, or the like)” and
a second device provided with a second procesor (Page 5 [0073]) configured to:
receive the information, and identify, based on the information, an order in which the UE moves positions based on the information, each of the locations being defined one by one for each period during which the UE stays in a cell (Page 3 [0057] “The prediction engine 304 can receive data corresponding to past state 402 and current state 404 of the communication network 110 (e.g., including monitored travel patterns of user devices and associated handovers” i.e. where the vehicle was and is now provides an order of positions), and
predict location information of the UE and movement direction information of the UE. (Page 3 [0057] “use trained machine learning or other AI model(s) to output predicted state 406 of the communication network 110 (e.g., including estimated travel patterns of user devices and associated handovers, estimated quality of service metrics, estimated cell resource utilization, or the like).” and Pages 3-4 [0060])
Raymond discloses that the information processing device can communicate with the AMF (Page 3 [0049]), but differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting acquiring from the Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF), which is different form the information processing system, information that includes handover information between the UE and a base station.
In an analogous art, Vakeesar teaches an information processing system (Fig. 9 [150]) comprising a processor (Fig. 9 [920]) configured to:
acquire, from Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) (Fig. 1 [130]) which is different from the information processing device (Fig. 1 [150]), information that includes handover information between a UE and a base station. (Page 20 lines 25-27 “Additionally, a UE specific Handover Restriction list, History Information, UE Registration Area can be passed on to the prediction function network node 150 by the AMF 130/ SMF”)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Raymond after modifying it to incorporate the ability to receive handover information from an AMF of Vakeesar since being able to predict where mobile devices are traveling enables ensuring QOS requirements can be met to continue providing a session to the UE along the path. (Vakeesar Page 20 line 33 through Page 21 line 26)
Regarding claim 10, Raymond in view of Vakeesar teaches wherein the handover information includes information on a history of switching between a plurality of base stations, one of which is the base station as the vehicle moves. (Raymond Page 3 [0057] “The prediction engine 304 can receive data corresponding to past state 402 and current state 404 of the communication network 110 (e.g., including monitored travel patterns of user devices and associated handovers, quality of service metrics, cell resource utilization, or the like)” and Vakeesar Page 20 lines 25-27 “Additionally, a UE specific Handover Restriction list, History Information, UE Registration Area can be passed on to the prediction function network node 150 by the AMF 130/ SMF”)
Claims 26 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vakeesar in view of Raymond as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Chiba et al. (US-2024/0298232 hereinafter, Chiba).
Regarding claims 26 and 27, Vakeesar in view of Raymond teaches the limitations of claim 1 above including a NWDAF (Vakeesar Fig. 3 [140]) and the ability to identify, based on the information and statistical information (i.e. handover information includes two base stations which can qualify as a “log”), an order of locations through which the UE has moved (Raymond Page 3 [0057] “The prediction engine 304 can receive data corresponding to past state 402 and current state 404 of the communication network 110 (e.g., including monitored travel patterns of user devices and associated handovers” i.e. where the vehicle was and is now provides an order of positions), but differs from the claimed invention by not explicitly reciting acquire statistical information, the statistical information including log information of base stations that have communicated with the UE, from an NWDAF.
In an analogous art, Chiba teaches a method and system for shortening the switching time in an overlapping area of communication cells (Abstract and Page 2 [0014]) that includes acquiring, from a Network Data Analytics Function (NWDAF) (Page 5 [0041] “NWDAF”), statistical information (Page 5 [0041]), the statistical information including log information of base stations that have communicated with the UE. (Page 5 [0041] “NWDAF collects and accumulates activity history data (including history information on the base station to which the communication device 2 was connected and the location of the communication device 2) on various activities performed on the network by a number of communication devices 2 connected to the network, and utilizes the analysis results for traffic control on the network” and [0043] “from the core network CN (NWDAF etc.) and/or the database 4, statistical information on the activities on the network by mainly an unspecified number of communication devices 2 (including statistical information on the base stations to which they are connected) and/or historical information on the physical locations of mainly an unspecified number of communication devices 2 can be acquired”)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to be motivated to implement the invention of Vakeesar in view of Raymond after modifying it to incorporate the ability to acquire statistical information including a log of base stations to communicate with a UE from a NWDAF of Chiba since the NWDAF is responsible for collecting and analyzing historical data of base stations connected to UEs and the UE locations. (Chiba Page 5 [0041])
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW C SAMS whose telephone number is (571)272-8099. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5 EST.
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/Matthew C Sams/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646
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