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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant contends that Park fails to teach “analyzing an event datastore… by comparing the location of the first UE with event locations stored in the event datastore,” arguing that Park merely determines a disaster-affected area and identifies UEs within that area rather than comparing UE location with event locations.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Park discloses receiving disaster occurrence data including a disaster occurrence point expressed in coordinates and an impact range, and generating spatial representations (e.g., segments) based on that event location data. Park further discloses storing segment coordinate information together with user terminal coordinates in a database and determining whether user terminals are located within the segments covering the disaster-affected area.
Because the segment coordinates are generated from the disaster occurrence location and stored in the database, and the system evaluates whether the UE location falls within those stored regions, Park necessarily compares the UE location with location information derived from the event. The claim does not require a direct comparison with raw event coordinates without intermediate processing, and thus Park’s evaluation of UE location against stored, event-derived spatial data satisfies the claimed “comparing” under the broadest reasonable interpretation.
Accordingly, Park teaches or at least suggests analyzing an event datastore indicative of event locations by comparing a UE location with event-related location data to identify events impacting the UE.
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.
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.
Claims 1,12,14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Drobot et al. (US 20090081994, hereinafter Drobot) in view of Park et al. (KR 102351539, hereinafter Park) in further view of Kim et al. (KR 20220115644, hereinafter Kim)
Regarding claim 1, Drobot discloses receiving, from a first user equipment (UE), a request to establish a communication session with a second UE (Par. 0032: Line 2; User A and B are engaged in a phone call. The fact that the two UEs are engaged in a voice call necessarily implies that a request from a first UE to establish communication with a second UE was made);
determining, based upon the request, a location of the first UE (Par. 0032: Lines 3-6; The location of the first UE is being tracked as a result of the communication established by the request);
and providing, based upon the one or more events, an announcement for presentation on the first UE (Par. 0032: Lines 7-10; Both users are warned about imminent telecommunications disruption).
Drobot does not disclose analyzing an event datastore indicative of (i) a plurality of events and (ii) an event location associated with each of the plurality of events (), based upon the location of the first UE, to identify one or more events potentially impacting telecommunication services provided to the first UE.
Park, however, discloses analyzing an event datastore (Page. 3 Last Line and Page 4: Lines 1-4; The disaster notification server includes a database (DB) 280) indicative of (i) a plurality of events (Page. 4: Lines 27-30; A plurality of segment lists are stored with respect to the disaster corresponding to the disaster occurrence data. Identification information for the disasters and corresponding segments are also stored; The server stores/handles multiple disasters (each with its own ID); Page. 4: Lines 20-21; Segments represent geographic subdivisions used to divide and cover an event area) and (ii) an event location associated with each of the plurality of events (Page 6: Last Par.: Lines 4-7; The disaster occurrence data includes a location expressed in coordinates; Page 4: Lines 41-42; Segment coordinate information stores coordinate information for each segment; Each disaster includes a specific event location (occurrence point in coordinates) and the system also stores segment coordinates defining the affected area), by comparing the location of the first UE with event locations stored in the event datastore (Page 3: Lines 24-27; The disaster notification server determines a disaster affected area based on the disaster occurrence data, detects a user terminal in the disaster area, and sends a disaster notification message to the user terminal; The UE location is evaluated (compared) to determine if it falls within segments whose coordinated are derived from the disaster occurrence location).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Park’s datastore-based analysis of multiple location-associated events into Drobot’s system, in order to enable Drobot to determine which events are relevant to a UE based on the UE’s location when generating announcements, thereby improving the relevance and accuracy of event-based notifications provided to the UE.
Drobot in view of Park does not disclose identifying one or more events potentially impacting telecommunication services provided to the first UE.
Kim, however, discloses receiving disaster information about events potentially impacting telecommunications services for the UE (Page 2: Description of embodiments: Par. 8: Lines 1-2; The terminal may receive disaster information; Page 8: Last 2 Lines and Page 9: Lines 1; A disaster is defined as something that can damage wires and communication lines).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further incorporate Kim’s teaching that disasters include events capable of damaging wires and communication lines into Drobot as modified by Park, so that the identified location-based events are evaluated for their potential impact on telecommunication services provided to the UE, thereby enabling more effective warning of service disruptions.
Regarding claim 12 as applied to claim 1, Drobot in view of Kim does not disclose wherein a first even location is stored in the event datastore in association with a first event and a second event location is stored in the event datastore in association with a second event, the method comprising:
in response to determining that the first event location is within a threshold distance of the location of the first UE, identifying the first event associated with the first event location as one of the one or more event.
Park, however, discloses wherein a first even location is stored in the event datastore in association with a first event and a second event location is stored in the event datastore in association with a second event (Page. 4: Lines 27-30; A plurality of segment lists (locations) are stored with respect to the disaster corresponding to the disaster occurrence data. Identification information for the disasters and corresponding segments are also stored; The server stores/handles multiple disasters (each with its own ID), the method comprising:
in response to determining that the first event location is within a threshold distance of the location of the first UE, identifying the first event associated with the first event location as one of the one or more event (Page 3: Lines 19-20; The system receives a disaster location (coordinates) along with a defined range representing how far the disaster affects surrounding areas; Page 7: Lines 6-11; The system divides the disaster area into regions based on specific distance ranges from the disaster location; Page 3: Lines 23-29; The system identifies which UEs are located inside and affected area and sends a notification to the UEs; Determining that A UE is located within a disaster-affected area defined by a radius from the disaster occurrence point corresponds to determining that the even location is within a threshold distance of the UE location. After determining the UE is within the threshold distance, the system identifies the corresponding disaster even for that UE and acts on it, corresponding to identifying the event as one of the one or more events).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Park’s technique of storing distinct event locations in association with corresponding events and matching a UE’s location to those stored event locations into Drobot in view of Kim, so that Drobot’s system can determine which event applies to the UE based on a location comparison and then select the corresponding event for use in generating the notification/announcement, thereby improving the accuracy and relevance of event identification for the UE.
Regarding claim 14, the rejection of claim 1 addresses the limitations presented in claim 14. Therefore, the limitations of claim 14 have been addressed.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions is necessarily included to perform the recited functions.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Drobot et al. (US 20090081994, hereinafter Drobot) in view of Park et al. (KR 102351539, hereinafter Park) in further view of Kim et al. (KR 20220115644, hereinafter Kim) in further view of Panchal et al. (US 10425800 Bl, hereinafter Panchal)
Regarding claim 3 as applied to claim 1, Drobot in view of Park in further view of Kim does not disclose wherein determining the location of the first UE comprises: analyzing the request to identify a geolocation field in the request; and determining the location based upon a location object in the geolocation field.
Panchal, however, discloses wherein determining the location of the first UE comprises:
analyzing the request to identify a geolocation field in the request (Col. 8: Lines
62-67; E-CSFS inspects the SIP Invite message (i.e., request) for a geolocation header);
and determining the location based upon a location object in the geolocation field
(Col. 9: Lines 25-32; Location of UE is determined).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Drobot in view of Park in further view of Kim and Panchal, because Panchal's disclosure of inspecting a SIP INVITE for a geolocation header and determining the location based on a location object would be a predictable technique to incorporate to obtain location data directly from the received request. This would improve interoperability and reduce the need for separate location queries.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Drobot et al. (US 20090081994, hereinafter Drobot) in view of Park et al. (KR 102351539, hereinafter Park) in further view of Kim et al. (KR 20220115644, hereinafter Kim) in further view of Panchal et al. (US 10425800 Bl, hereinafter Panchal) ) in further view of Imbimbo et al. (WO 2010105635, hereinafter Imbimbo)
Regarding claim 4 as applied to claim 3, Drobot in view of Park in further view of Kim in further view of Panchal does not disclose the location object comprises a set of geographical coordinates indicative of a geographical position of the first UE; and the location corresponds to a geographical region comprising the geographical position.
Imbimbo, however, discloses wherein:
the location object comprises a set of geographical coordinates indicative of a geographical position of the first UE (Col. 7: Lines 30-34; The UE location information may be represented in the form of geographical coordinates); and the location corresponds to a geographical region comprising the geographical position (Fig. 9; The coordinate system 900 shows a spatial area 906 made by geographical coordinates).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Drobot in view of Park in further view of Kim in further view of Panchal with Imbimbo, because Imbimbo's disclosure of using geographical coordinates to represent UE location and mapping those coordinates to a geographical region would have been a predictable extension of Panchal's location object. This combination would yield the predictable benefit of enabling more precise and standardized geographic region determination in event-based service control, improving accuracy and flexibility of location-based event detection.
Claims 6,10,16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Drobot et al. (US 20090081994, hereinafter Drobot) in view of Park et al. (KR 102351539, hereinafter Park) in further view of Kim et al. (KR 20220115644, hereinafter Kim) in further view of Larson et al. (US 20050070247, hereinafter Larson)
Regarding claim 6 as applied to claim 1, Drobot discloses wherein:
the communication session corresponds to at least one of a voice call or a video call (Par. 0032: Line 2; The session is a voice session); and providing the announcement for presentation on the first UE comprises transmitting the announcement to the first UE (Par. 0032: Lines 7-10; Both users are warned about imminent telecommunications disruption).
However, Drobot in view of Park in further view of Kim does not disclose wherein:
the announcement comprises audio comprising speech representative of the one or more events.
Larson, however, discloses:
an announcement comprising audio comprising speech representative of the one or more events (Par. 0015: Lines 8-1 1 ; The information regarding to the alert can be in the form of a voice message; Par. 0019: Lines 13-19; An example of a message delivered to the MSU can be directions to the closest shelter during a Tornado alert).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Drobot in view of Park in further view of Kim and Larson, because Larson's disclosure of delivering audio alerts to UEs provides a well-known and predictable way to present event notifications to users. Incorporating Larson's audio alert functionality into Drobot in view of Park in further view of Kim’s event announcement system would enhance user awareness by providing immediate, intelligible spoken alerts, improving accessibility and ensuring critical information is conveyed even when the user cannot view the device's display.
Regarding claim 10 as applied to claim 1, Drobot discloses generating a message indicative of an event of the one or more events (Par. 0032: Lines 8-10; The
UEs are warned about the possible event of session disruption); and transmitting the announcement to the first UE (Par. 0032: Lines 7-10; Both users are warned about imminent telecommunications disruption).
However, Drobot in view of Park in further view of Kim does not disclose wherein providing the announcement for presentation on the first UE comprises:
synthesizing audio comprising speech representative of the message.
Larson, however, discloses:
synthesizing audio comprising speech representative of the message (Par. 001 5: Lines 8-1 1 ; The information regarding the alert can be in the form of a voice message).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Drobot in view of Park in further view of Kim and Larson, because Larson's disclosure of generating messages, synthesizing speech from those messages, and transmitting the resulting audio provides a straightforward and established method for presenting event notifications in spoken form. Applying this technique in Drobot in view of Park in further view of Kim’s system would predictably improve user comprehension and response time by delivering location-based event information audibly, without requiring the user to read or interact with the device's display.
Regarding claim 16 as applied to claim 14, the rejection of claim 6 addresses the limitations presented in claim 16. Therefore, the limitations of claim 16 have been addressed.
Conclusion
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/FABIAN BOTELLO/Examiner, Art Unit 2648
/WESLEY L KIM/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2648
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