DETAILED ACTION
This Action is in response to the Amendment for Application Number 18008587 received on 4/15/2026.
Claims 1-12, 14-17, 19-20, 23-30 are presented for examination.
Claims 13, 18 and 21-22 are cancelled.
Claims 1, 6, 8, 16, 17, 19, 23, 26, and 27 have been amended.
Claims 29-30 are newly added.
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 Objections
Claim 16 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 16 recites the limitation, “The method of claim 1, further comprises anonymization of the monitoring report, comprising mapping two or more traffic types”, which includes minor grammatical issues. For examination purposes, the claim will be interpreted to recite, “The method of claim 1, further comprising anonymization of the monitoring report, the anonymization of the monitoring report comprising mapping two or more traffic types”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-12, 14-17, 19-20, 23-25 and 29-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to abstract idea without significantly more.
The following rejection finds basis in the most recently issued guidance published in the Federal Register on 7 January 2019 entitled “2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance”, available at <https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/01/07/2018-28282/2019-revised-patent-subject-matter-eligibility-guidance>. The 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance applies the subject matter eligibility test as described within recently revised MPEP § 2106, revision 08.2017, namely, the “Alice/Mayo test” or “Mayo test” as laid out by the Supreme Court as a framework for determining claimed subject matter eligibility. See Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. _, 134 S. Ct. at 2355, 110 USPQ2d at 1981 (citing Mayo, 566 U.S. 66, 101 USPQ2d 1961). Note that the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance also supersedes all versions of the USPTO's “Eligibility Quick Reference Sheet Identifying Abstract Ideas” (first issued in July 2015 and updated most recently in July 2018).
In sum, the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance revises the procedures for determining whether a patent claim or patent application claim is directed to a judicial exception (laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas) under Step 2A of the USPTO's Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance in two ways. First, the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance explains that abstract ideas can be grouped as, e.g., mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human activity, and mental processes. Second, this guidance explains that a patent claim or patent application claim that recites a judicial exception is not “directed to” the judicial exception if the judicial exception is integrated into a practical application of the judicial exception. A claim that recites a judicial exception, but is not integrated into a practical application, is directed to the judicial exception under Step 2A and must then be evaluated under Step 2B (inventive concept) to determine the subject matter eligibility of the claim. (Examiner’s emphasis added.)
As will be explained, these claim(s) are directed to a judicial exception, namely, an abstract idea, that is not integrated into a practical application without significantly more and are therefore directed to ineligible subject matter.
Step 1: Statutory Category: Yes
Independent claims 1 and 23 are respectively directed to a method comprising a series of steps, and an apparatus comprising processor and memory, and therefore claims 1-12, 14-17, 19-20, 23-25 and 29-30 fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A – Prong 1: Judicial Exception Recited: Yes.
Claims 1 and 23 recite calculating from data records, each data record including a traffic type of a traffic activity of a mobile device, a timestamp of the traffic activity, an identifier of the mobile device, a number of mobile devices, within a monitoring period, having traffic activities that fulfil i) a traffic type of the traffic activity matches the monitoring type; ii) a timestamp of the traffic activity falls within the monitoring period; and iii) for the monitoring type, traffic activities associated with the same identifier and the same traffic activity are considered only once per monitoring period, and iv) a geographical location of the traffic activity falls within the geographical area; wherein identification information related to each of the mobile devices is anonymized in the monitoring report. These limitations, as drafted, are a process that, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind (e.g. with pen/paper) but for the recitation of generic computer components (i.e. the network system/network apparatus/processor/memory recited in claims 23). That is, other than reciting “network system”, “network apparatus”, “processor”, or “memory,” nothing in the claim element precludes the step from practically being performed in the mind. For example, but for the generic computer components language, the claim encompasses a user simply reviewing data records to determine a number of the mobile devices that fulfil the listed conditions in his/her mind or with pen and paper and simply providing that determined number without specifying particular information for each of the mobile devices. The mere nominal recitation of a generic network system/apparatus/memory/processor does not take the claim limitation out of the mental processes grouping. Thus, the claims recite a mental process and are therefore directed to a judicial exception. Additionally, claims 1-12, 14-17, 19-20, 23-25 and 29-30 do not provide an improvement in the functioning of a computer or other technology or technological field because, at best, claims 1-12, 14-17, 19-20, 23-25 and 29-30 recite generic computer components (as indicated above) to, at best, merely automate the recited calculating in a generic sense.
Step 2A – Prong 2: Integrated into a Practical Application: No.
Claims 1, 23 recite the additional limitations: receiving, from an application server, a monitoring request specifying a monitoring type. a geographical area to be monitored, and a monitoring period defined by a start time and end time; in response to the monitoring request, (performing the analysis), and returning, in response to the monitoring request, a monitoring report that is based on the calculated number of mobile devices. These steps are recited at a high level of generality (i.e., as a general means of data gathering and data input/output, i.e. receiving a request and in response, obtaining/returning results of the mental step), and amounts to mere data gathering, which is a form of insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g).
The “network system”, “network apparatus”, “processor”, and “memory” that performs the calculation step are also recited at a high level of generality, and merely automates the calculation step. Each of the additional limitations is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components (the “network system”, “network apparatus”, “processor”, and “memory”), recited at a high level of generality and merely invoked as a tool to perform the abstract idea of calculating.
The combination of these additional elements is no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component (the “network system”, “network apparatus”, “processor”, and “memory”). Accordingly, even in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to the abstract idea.
Step 2B – Inventive Concept: No
As discussed with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements in the claim amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. The same analysis applies here in 2B, i.e., mere instructions to apply an exception on a generic computer cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. Under the 2019 PEG, a conclusion that an additional element is insignificant extra-solution activity in Step 2A should be reevaluated in Step 2B. Here the receiving and returning steps were considered to be extra-solution activity in Step 2A, and thus it is reevaluated in Step 2B to determine if it is more than what is well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field.
The specification, p9, does not provide any indication that the noted components above (“network system”, “network apparatus”, “processor”, and “memory”, “first gateway node”, “second gateway node”) are anything other than a generic, off-the-shelf computer components, and the Symantec, TLI, and OIP Techs. court decisions cited in MPEP 2106.05(d)(II) indicate that mere collection or receipt of data over a network is a well-understood, routine, and conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner (as it is here). Accordingly, a conclusion that the receiving and returning steps (as well as the general functionality of the first/second gateway nodes) are well-understood, routine, conventional activity is supported under Berkheimer Option 2.
For these reasons, there is no inventive concept in the claims, and thus they are ineligible.
The dependent claims do not cure the deficiencies above.
Claim 2 recites the additional limitation, “to fulfil condition iii), multiple data records that concurrently fulfil conditions i) and ii) are only considered once for a given mobile device”, which adds to the calculation step and is therefore part of the judicial exception, recited above, and as such, for the same reasons, is also ineligible.
Claims 3-5 amount to merely describing the information of the data records used in the calculation and is therefore part of the judicial exception, recited above, and as such, for the same reasons, are also ineligible.
Claim 6 recites the additional limitations, wherein each of the data records is generated by a method comprising additional limitations of receiving, requesting, and receiving limitations, amount to additional steps recited at a high level of generality (i.e., as a general means of data gathering and data output, i.e. obtaining/returning results of the mental step), and amounts to mere data gathering, which is a form of insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g). Therefore, under the same analysis applied above in Step 2A and 2B with regards to the additional limitations, claim 6 is also ineligible.
Claim 7 further describes the data gathering step of claim 6, and therefore, for the same reasons, is also ineligible.
Claims 8-12 recite limitations that further describe what the monitoring report includes, and further add to the calculation step and are therefore part of the judicial exception, recited above. As such, for the same reasons, claims 8-11 are also ineligible
Claim 14 further describe the monitoring period, and therefore, contents of the request, and therefore amounts to further describing the data gathering step, which does not remove the above analysis as amounting to an additional step recited at a high level of generality (i.e., as a general means of data gathering and data output, i.e. obtaining/returning results of the mental step), and amounts to mere data gathering, which is a form of insignificant extra-solution activity. Claim 13 is therefore ineligible.
Claim 15 recites limitation describing what the traffic type is indicative of, and therefore merely describes the information of the data records used in the calculation and is therefore part of the judicial exception, recited above, and as such, for the same reasons, is also ineligible.
Claim 16-17 recites a limitation further describes the anonymization which adds to the calculation step and is therefore part of the judicial exception, recited above, and as such, for the same reasons, is also ineligible.
Claim 19 further describes describe the data records used in the calculation, as well as limitations that further describe the calculation, and as such are therefore part of the judicial exception, recited above, and as such, for the same reasons, is also ineligible.
Claim 20 generally describes consulting a mapping, which further describes the calculation, and as such are therefore part of the judicial exception, recited above. For the same reasons above, claim 20 is also ineligible.
Claims 24 and 25 recites the limitation, wherein the network apparatus is configured as or located on a packet gateway node of a 4th generation mobile communications network (claim 24), or a network data analytics function of a fth generation mobile communications network, which generically describe the apparatus, and is merely indicative of a generically specified environment, and does no more than generally link the use of the abstract idea to such, and does not reasonably constitute an improvement in the functioning of the computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field. For the same reasons above, claim 24 is ineligible.
Claim 29 recites the limitation, “wherein the traffic type corresponds to two or more logical hierarchical level descriptors for the traffic activity provided by a traffic source, with a highest level of the two or more logical hierarchical level descriptors being a generic traffic type”, which merely describes the information of the data records used in the calculation and is therefore part of the judicial exception, recited above, and as such, for the same reasons, are also ineligible.
Claim 30 recites the limitation, “wherein: the application server is a third-party application server requesting information related to the network traffic activities over a communications network provided by a network operator hosting the plurality of mobile devices; and the returning of the monitoring report is provided from the network operator to the third- party application server”, which generically describe the entity requesting the information, and is merely indicative of a generically specified environment, and does no more than generally link the use of the abstract idea to such, and does not reasonably constitute an improvement in the functioning of the computer, or an improvement to other technology or technical field, and as such, for the same reasons, are also ineligible. Additionally, the steps of “requesting”/returning” are recited at a high level of generality (i.e., as a general means of data gathering and data input/output, i.e. receiving a request and in response, obtaining/returning results of the mental step), and amounts to mere data gathering, which is a form of insignificant extra-solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g).
Claims 1-20, 23-25, and 29-30 are therefore ineligible.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 11, 12, 14-16, 23, 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goyet et al. (WO 2012016327 A1) in view of Cochran et al. (WO 2009/018567) and Sanganabhatla et al. (US 20180287920) and further in view of Choudhary et al. (US 20120203825) and further in view of Wu (US 20180242177).
Regarding claim 1, Goyet disclosed a method of reporting information included in data records generated for network traffic activities of a plurality of mobile devices (Goyet, [0013], Goyet disclosed generating metrics representative of IP data traffic from data records; [0077] “mobile IP network”; [0080] “mobile phones, tablets, laptops”; [0095] “reports” are “presented via a Graphical User Interface”), each data record including a traffic type of a traffic activity of a mobile device , a timestamp of the traffic activity, and an identifier of the mobile device (Goyet, [0083], Goyet describes the records “timestamps of occurrence of network events”, “an identifier of the device”, and “several parameters representative of the specific protocols, applications and services used during the IP data session”; See also [0043]), the method comprising:
calculating from the data records a number of mobile devices (Goyet, [0043], ”computation of a number of users 42 is based on the information extracted from the IP data records”, “having a unique identifier of the device accessing a specific resource is mandatory to support the notion of unique user (a unique user is defined by the unique identification of its device)”) having, within a given monitoring period (Goyet, [0043]. “The effective computation of the number of users is performed over a reference time period”),
traffic activities that fulfil the following conditions:
i) a traffic type of the traffic activity matches a monitoring type (Goyet, [0014], “compute at least one measure (number of users) representative of the traffic dimension (traffic type)”, [0015], “the at least one traffic dimension comprises at least one of: protocols, data services, web domains, applications, and IP television (IPTV) channels” [0016], “the at least one measure comprises at least one of… a number of users”; Goyet therefore disclosed computing a number of users based on the records following a particular traffic type; See also [0022]-[0027] for all traffic dimensions which amount to traffic types that may be used in the calculation of the number of users);
ii) a timestamp of the traffic activity falls within the monitoring period (Goyet, [0043], “The effective computation of the number of users is performed over a reference time period, as well be detailed later. If available in the IP data records, generic information (e.g. timestamps of occurrence, identification of the related device, etc) us also memorized (in the data warehouse). This generic information is used to perform the calculation/aggregation of the number of users”; See also [0064]); and
iii) for the monitoring type, traffic activities associated with the same identifier and the same traffic activity are considered only once per monitoring period (Goyet, [0037], “The number of users 42 measures the number of unique users accessing / making use of a specific resource. Specific IP flows are taken into consideration, to compute the number of users 42 accessing / making use of this specific resource, from the perspective of a particular traffic dimension. The notion of number of unique users is defined as follows: the same user accessing / making use of the specific resource several times under predefined circumstances (for instance, a reference time period) is counted only once”); and
returning, a monitoring report that is based on the calculated number of mobile devices (Goyet, [0095] Goyet disclosed generating a report which is transferred to the report unit 170, to be presented to the staff of the network Operator (e.g. operational, marketing, and product development teams) via a Graphical User Interface (GUI)”).
The teachings of Goyet disclosed the analytic engine querying the data warehouse 166, and extracting metrics representative of the IP data traffic from the records (Goyet, [0043], [0095]). Goyet further disclosed utilizing the metrics in order to generate reports that are presented via GUI, to which the “reports presented via the GUI consist in visual representations of the metrics, relying on various types of charts and diagrams, to illustrate the metrics in an intuitive, easy to understand way.” (Goyet, [0095]).
Goyet disclosed generation of a report according to the analytic framework to follow the following steps: “First, a traffic dimension 20 is selected. Then, one or several measures 40 representative of this traffic dimension 20 is (are) selected. Then, for each measure 40, one or several traffic characteristics 60 are selected. For each traffic characteristic 60, a range of values representative of this traffic characteristic is selected. The data warehouse 166 is queried by the analytic engine 168, to extract the aggregated values of each selected measure 40 against the range of values of the selected traffic characteristic(s) 60. The extracted aggregated values of the measures 40 constitute the metrics, which are further processed if necessary, and then combined, to generate the report” (Goyet, [0096]).
Goyet further provides an example report being generated to analyze IPTV channels 25, in which Goyet disclosed, “The volume of traffic 41 for three different IPTV channels is compared. Additionally, the volume of traffic 41 is aggregated on a daily basis, and compared over a one month period (aggregation against time 61). Furthermore, the comparison is performed for two different models of mobile devices (aggregation against devices 62).” (Goyet, [0097]).
It would have been within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed that the generation of a report involving extracted aggregated values of the measures, processed, combined and presented via the GUI as “visual representations of the metrics, relying on various types of charts and diagrams, to illustrate the metrics in an intuitive, easy to understand way” (Goyet, [0095]), would not include identification of the mobile devices, as the inclusion of such would not amount to aggregated values of measures that are presented in a visual representation of the metrics.
While such would have been within the level of one of ordinary skill, Goyet did not explicitly disclose wherein identification information related to each of the mobile devices is anonymized in the monitoring report.
In an analogous art, Cochran disclosed wherein identification information related to each of the mobile devices is anonymized in the monitoring report (Cochran, Fig. 7H, [0062], Cochran disclosed a traffic report generated and presented in a visual representation with respect to particular metrics, in which the report does not provide any identification information related to each of the user devices, which may be mobile devices per [0047]; For example, Fig 7H shows a visual representation of the number of unique browser clicks over a time period, and another visual representation of the number of unique browser impressions over a time period in another visual representation, neither of which providing any specific details for the user’s devices and therefore anonymizing the user device identification; Applicant’s Specification only indicates that anonymization amounts to simply not including identification information in the report).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Goyet and Cochran, as Goyet explicitly suggests visual representations of traffic data, and Cochran explicitly provides techniques for providing such visual representations for traffic data, and as such the motivation is found within their teachings. Additionally, both teachings involve the presenting of traffic reports, and are therefore within similar environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate Cochran’s traffic report techniques within the teachings of Goyet in order to further strengthen Goyet’s intended benefits of providing visual representations of traffic data to illustrate the metrics in an intuitive, easy to understand way (Goyet, [0095]).
Goyet and Cochran did not explicitly disclose the data records including a geographical area associated with the mobile device. Goyet and Cochran also did not explicitly disclose receiving a monitoring request specifying the monitoring type and a geographical area to be monitored, in response to receiving the monitoring request, calculating from the data records to generate the report, and returning the monitoring report being in response to the monitoring request, and the calculating to include the condition of a geographical location of the traffic activity falls within the geographical area specified in the monitoring request.
Sanganabhatla disclosed the data records including a geographical area associated with the mobile device (Sanganabhatla, [0019], Sanganabhatla disclosed capturing application traffic and usage data,including geographical information about a client, and [0020] storing the captured application traffic and usage data in data store 112). Sanganabhatla also disclosed receiving a monitoring request specifying the monitoring type and a geographical area to be monitored, and returning of the monitoring report being in response to the monitoring request (Sanganabhatla, [0019], Sanganabhatla disclosed examples of information that may be specified for capture to include monitoring type information and geographical information [0056], Figure 4, 402 “Receive request to generate application analytics report(s),; [0059] “The request may be to generate a specific type of application analytics report, such as a report on a number of application hits per geographic location”). Sanganabhatla additionally disclosed the data records including a geographical area associated with the mobile device, and the calculating to include the condition of a geographical location of the traffic activity falls within the geographical area (Sanganabhatla, [0059], “an application analytics report on application hits based on geographic location may be generated for social network applications”).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Goyet, Cochran and Sanganabhatla, as they both relate to reporting information regarding traffic usage, and as such, they are within similar environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the request/response functionality of Sanganabhatla within the teachings of Goyet and Cochran in order to obtain the predicable results suggested by Goyet, providing the Operators of Goyet with the ability to obtain reports specific to their needs in terms of monitoring and analysis (Goyet, [0021]).
While the combined teachings of Goyet, Cochran, and Sanganabhatla disclosed receiving an application request (Sanganabhatla, [0019], [0056], [0059], Sanganabhatla’s teachings include receiving the application request from a client), the combination did not explicitly disclose receiving the application request “from an application server”, as claimed.
However, the client of Sanganabhatla performs the required functionality of the claimed application server, which is simply providing the application request (i.e. the limitation recites receiving the request from the application server). As Sanganabhatla’s client provides the request, then Sanganabhatla’s client reasonably amounts to the functional equivalent of the claimed “application server”.
Regardless, Choudhary disclosed receiving application requests from an application server (Choudhary, [0007], Choudhary disclosed managing of intermediary devices to receive requests from clients and forward the requests via multiple intermediary devices to the destination such as Server 106b; See Fig. 1B multiple intermediate Appliances 200, which reasonably amount to application servers, as shown in Fig 2B, hosting application services).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the combined Goyet, Cochran, and Sanganabhatla with Choudhary as they both relate to the handling of application requests, and are therefore within similar environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the utilization of appliances 200 of Choudhary within the combined teachings of Goyet, Cochran, and Sanganabhatla in order to provide for traffic management of network traffic overcoming challenges in performance and operations when the amount of traffic is large (Choudhary, [0004]).
While the combined teachings of Goyet, Cochran, Sanganabhatla and Choudhary disclosed receiving a request and in response generating a report in which the report is for a “specified” time period (Sanganabhatla, [0063]-[0064]), the combination did not explicitly disclose the monitoring request specifying a monitoring period defined by a start time and end time, as claimed.
In an analogous art, Wu disclosed the utilization of a monitoring request that specifies a monitoring period defined by a start time and end time (Wu, [0012], Wu disclosed a request message which results in the creation of a monitoring report; [0013], “the request message may further include… a monitoring time length, a monitoring report number, a time when a monitoring ends and a time when a monitoring starts”).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Goyet, Cochran, Sanganabhatla and Choudhary with Wu, since the combined teachings of Goyet, Cochran, Sanganabhatla and Choudhary suggest the functionality of monitoring for a “specified” time period, and Wu provides a particular way for such specifying of the time period. Wu therefore provides a way to obtain Sanganabhatla’s “specified” time period (Sanganabhatla, [0063]-[0064]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate Wu’s particular request format within the teachings of Goyet, Cochran, Sanganabhatla and Choudhary in order to realize the combined teachings clear suggestion of providing a monitoring report over a “specified” time period, allowing users to obtain monitoring reports for desired “specified” time periods, thereby facilitating organizations in decision-making, identifying cost reduction opportunities, market research, etc (Sanganabhatla, [0002]).
Claim 23 recites a network apparatus comprising a processor; memory coupled with the processor, wherein the memory includes instructions that when executed by the processor causes the network apparatus to perform operations that are substantially similar to the limitations of claim 1. Goyet, Cochran and Sanganabhatla disclosed a network apparatus comprising a processor; memory coupled with the processor, wherein the memory includes instructions that when executed by the processor causes the network apparatus to perform such operations (Goyet, Figure 2, Analytic System 160 comprising processing units and data warehouse; Sanganabhatla [0082], “memory”, “processor”). Therefore claim 23 is rejected under the same rationale applied above.
Regarding claim 2, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu disclosed the method of claim 1, wherein to fulfil condition iii), multiple data records that concurrently fulfil conditions i) and ii) are only considered once for a given mobile device (Goyet, [0037], “The number of users 42 measures the number of unique users accessing / making use of a specific resource. Specific IP flows are taken into consideration, to compute the number of users 42 accessing / making use of this specific resource, from the perspective of a particular traffic dimension. The notion of number of unique users is defined as follows: the same user accessing / making use of the specific resource several times under predefined circumstances (for instance, a reference time period) is counted only once”). See motivation to combine above.
Regarding claim 11, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu disclosed the method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring report includes a value derived from the data records that fulfil the conditions (Goyet, [0095]-[0096], Reports include traffic dimensions; Goyet provides a single example in [0097] which can be applied to any of the traffic dimensions listed in [0022]-[0027]). See motivation to combine above.
Regarding claim 12, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu disclosed the method of claim 11, wherein the value is indicative of one or more of: a traffic type, a generic traffic type encompassing multiple traffic types on a lower hierarchy level, a prediction made by a machine learning algorithm based on the data records that fulfil the conditions, a temporal validity of the prediction, and an average traffic duration (Goyet, [0095]-[0096], Reports include traffic dimensions; Goyet provides a single example in [0097] which can be applied to any of the traffic dimensions listed in [0022]-[0027] which identify as traffic types). See motivation to combine above.
Regarding claim 14, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu disclosed the method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring period is a function of one or more variable network parameters (Goyet, [0064]-[0065] Goyet disclosed the time period dependent on granularity). See motivation to combine above.
Regarding claim 15, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu disclosed the method of claim 1, wherein the traffic type is indicative of, or derived from, at least one of an application identifier of an application involved in the network traffic and a destination domain name of a destination of the network traffic (Goyet, [0002]). See motivation to combine above.
Regarding claim 16, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu disclosed the method of claim 1, further comprising anonymization of the monitoring report comprising mapping two or more traffic types on a lower hierarchy level to a single generic traffic type on a higher hierarchy level (Cochran, Fig. 7H, [0062], Cochran disclosed a traffic report generated and presented in a visual representation with respect to particular metrics, showing particular graphs for specific traffic types, such as click traffic and impression traffic, both of which are also mapped into a higher hierarchy level shown in the top graph, labeled “Overall Traffic”; Applicant’s specification page 5 line 30 through page 6, line 7).
Regarding claim 29, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu disclosed the method of claim 1, wherein the traffic type corresponds to two or more logical hierarchical level descriptors for the traffic activity provided by a traffic source, with a highest level of the two or more logical hierarchical level descriptors being a generic traffic type (Goyet, [0012], Goyet disclosed analytics involving data records processed from the perspective of at least one traffic dimension; The processing comprises for each at least one traffic dimension: extracting information representative of the traffic dimension from the IP data records, and using the extracted information to compute at least one measure representative of the traffic dimension. The processing further comprises computing a metric, consisting of an aggregated value of the at least one measure representative of the traffic dimension against at least one traffic characteristic; See [0015], in which each dimension corresponds to the listed attributes and measures and therefore corresponds to multiple descriptors of various hierarchical levels, as claimed).
Claim(s) 3-5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goyet et al. (WO 2012016327 A1) in view of Cochran et al. (WO 2009/018567) and Sanganabhatla et al. (US 20180287920) and Choudhary et al. (US 20120203825) and Wu (US 20180242177) and further in view of Chaubey et al. (US 20210306276).
Regarding claim 3, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu disclosed the method of claim 1, wherein each traffic activity comprises transmission of a series of IP packets and wherein one data record has been generated from one packet (Goyet, [0082], capturing real time IP packets related to IP data sessions, extracting from IP packets by DPI). While Goyet and Sanganabhatla disclosed packet capture and analysis, the combination did not explicitly describe such in a sense of PDUs.
In an analagous art, Chaubey disclosed traffic analysis involving the inspection of PDUs (Chaubey, [0048] interception of PDUs for analysis, [0050], analyzing the payload and header via DPI).
One of orindary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu with Chaubey as they all are related to devices performing similar packet inspection/analysis, and therefore are within similar environments. Chaubey’s packet inspection device is therefore a device that is similar to the device of the combined teachings of Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu that has been improved in the same way as claimed.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the PDU inspection of Chaubey within the packet inspection techniques of Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu, as such would have been predictable in applying one packet inspection technique over/with another packet inspection technique to improve a similar packet inspection system and facilitate identification of such traffic.
Regarding claim 4, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu, and Chaubey disclosed the method of claim 3, wherein each PDU has a PDU header and a PDU payload, and wherein the traffic type included in a particular data record is determined from at least one of PDU header inspection and PDU payload inspection (Chaubey, [0048] interception of PDUs for analysis, [0050], analyzing the payload and header via DPI). See motivation to combine above.
Regarding claim 5, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu, and Chaubey disclosed the method of claim 3, wherein the PDUs are selected from Internet Protocol, IP, PDUs and Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP, PDUs (Goyet, [0082], capturing real time IP packets; Chaubey, [0083], traffic containing IP address amounts to IP traffic).
Claim(s) 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goyet et al. (WO 2012016327 A1) in view of Cochran et al. (WO 2009/018567) and Sanganabhatla et al. (US 20180287920) and Choudhary et al. (US 20120203825) and Wu (US 20180242177) and further in view of Rahmati et al. (US 20190373490).
Regarding claim 19, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu disclosed the method of claim 1. While the combined teachings disclosed the collecting of attributes in a mobile network (Goyet, [0083]), including Call Detail Records, the combination did not explicitly disclose the geographical location is defined by a cell identifier.
In an analogous art, Rahmati disclosed the geographical location is defined by a cell identifier (Rahmati, [0137], the collecting of attributes including the collection of cellular positioning based on “Cell IDs” and such are compared with a reference database that correlates the IDs to position coordinates, to obtain geographic coordinates).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated combine Rahmati’s technique for geographic location determination within the teachings of Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu because the combined teachings explicitly suggest mobile network monitoring for geographic location, and Rahmati provides a manner for doing such.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate Rahmati’s geographic location determination techniques within the combined teachings of Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary and Wu as doing so would obtain the predictable results of utilizing such technique for its intended purpose, thereby providing users of the combined teachings with the ability to determine events occurring at particular geographic locations, making the system more desirable to use by its customers.
Regarding claim 20, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla Choudhary Wu and Rahmati disclosed the method of claim 19, comprising consulting a mapping between cell identifiers and geographical areas to determine if the geographical location of the traffic activity falls within the geographical area (Sanganabhatla, [0019], Sanganabhatla disclosed capturing application traffic and usage data,including geographical information about a client, and [0020] storing the captured application traffic and usage data in data store 112; [0056], Figure 4, 402 “Receive request to generate application analytics report(s),; [0059] “The request may be to generate a specific type of application analytics report, such as a report on a number of application hits per geographic location”; In combination with Rahmati, [0137], which disclosed the collecting of attributes including the collection of cellular positioning based on “Cell IDs” and such are compared with a reference database that correlates the IDs to position coordinates, to obtain geographic coordinates). See motivation to combine above.
Claim(s) 24-25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goyet et al. (WO 2012016327 A1) in view of Cochran et al. (WO 2009/018567) and Sanganabhatla et al. (US 20180287920) and Choudhary et al. (US 20120203825) and Wu (US 20180242177) and further in view of Nithiyanantham et al. (US 20210099909).
Regarding claim 24, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary, Wu disclosed the network apparatus of claim 23, but did not explicitly disclose wherein the network apparatus is configured as or located on a packet gateway node of a 4th generation mobile communications network.
In an analagous art, Nithiyanantham disclosed reporting on a network apparatus that is configured as or located on a packet gateway node of a 4th generation mobile communications network (Nithiyanantham, [0025], Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway User plane function (PGW-U) sends usage reports).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary Wu with Nithiyanantham as they all relate to traffic reporting, and as such are within similar wireless environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the network apparatus configuration of Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary Wu within the 4G gateway of Nithiyanantham in order to increase scalability across known wireless systems making the system more desirable to use by its customers.
Regarding claim 25, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary Wu disclosed the network apparatus of claim 23, but did not explicitly disclose wherein the network apparatus is configured as or co-located with a network data analytics function of a 5th generation mobile communications network.
In an analagous art, Nithiyanantham disclosed reporting on a network apparatus that is configured as or co-located with a network data analytics function of a 5th generation mobile communications network (Nithiyanantham, [0028-[0030], UPF in 5G reporting).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary Wu with Nithiyanantham as they all relate to traffic reporting, and as such are within similar wireless environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the network apparatus configuration of Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary Wu within the 5G networks analytics function of Nithiyanantham in order to increase scalability across known wireless systems making the system more desirable to use by its customers.
Claim(s) 30 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goyet et al. (WO 2012016327 A1) in view of Cochran et al. (WO 2009/018567) and Sanganabhatla et al. (US 20180287920) and Choudhary et al. (US 20120203825) and Wu (US 20180242177) and further in view of Alisawi (US 20150023160).
Regarding claim 30, Goyet, Cochran, Sanganabhatla, Choudhary, and Wu disclosed the method of claim 1, but did not explicitly disclose wherein: the application server is a third-party application server requesting information related to the network traffic activities over a communications network provided by a network operator hosting the plurality of mobile devices; and the returning of the monitoring report is provided from the network operator to the third-party application server.
Alisawi disclose wherein: the application server is a third-party application server requesting information related to the network traffic activities over a communications network provided by a network operator hosting the plurality of mobile devices; and the returning of the monitoring report is provided from the network operator to the third- party application server (Alisawi, [0092]-[0093], Alisawi disclosed a server side proxy 125 of Fig. 1G, including one or more servers that can interface with third party application servers, the server side proxy including LSPS 174, which can provide reporting and usage analytics services for analyzing traffic; The LSPS 174 can collect information (e.g., logs) from the client side proxy 175, the network-side proxy 114 and/or the server side proxy 125 and provide the necessary tools for producing reports and usage analytics can used for analyzing traffic and signaling data or behavior across applications, servers, and the like; See Fig. 1E showing Network-Side Proxy at the Operator network 152 and Third party Server/Server-Side Proxy in communication with Network-Side Proxy; See [0031] network-side proxy uses caching strategy to provide cached responses to third-party server requests).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary Wu with Alisawi as they all relate to traffic reporting, and as such are within similar wireless environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the teachings of Alisawi within combined teachings of Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary Wu in order to increase scalability across known wireless systems making the system more desirable to use by its customers.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-10, 17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims, and appropriate corrections are made with respect to the formal issues noted above.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 6, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary disclosed the method of claim 1, and further disclosed that IP data records from a set of collecting entities are grouped by geographical proximity (Goyet, [0085]). However, the combination did not explicitly disclosed wherein generating an individual one of the data records comprises
receiving a measurement report indicating, for a current traffic activity of a particular mobile device, a traffic type of the traffic activity and an identifier of the mobile device;
requesting, based on the identifier of the mobile device, a geographical location of the traffic activity;
receiving the geographical location of the traffic activity;
generating a data record associating the geographical location with the traffic type and the identifier of the particular mobile device; and
providing the data record with a time stamp.
Claim 7 is objected to by virtue of its dependency to claim 6.
Regarding claim 8, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary disclosed the method of claim 1, but did not explicitly disclose wherein the monitoring report includes an average number of mobile devices derived by performing the calculation N times during the monitoring period so as to obtain N numbers of mobile devices; and averaging the N numbers of mobile devices thus obtained.
Claims 9 and 10 are objected to by virtue of their dependency to claim 8.
Regarding claim 17, Goyet, Cochran Sanganabhatla and Choudhary did not explicitly disclose the method of claim 15, wherein, one or both of different application identifiers and different destination domain names are mapped, as lower level traffic types, to a single generic traffic type on the higher hierarchy level.
Claims 26-28 are allowable over the cited prior art.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 26, Goyet disclosed a network system comprising a network apparatus configured to report information included in data records generated for network traffic activities of a plurality of mobile devices (Goyet, [0013], Goyet disclosed generating metrics representative of IP data traffic from data records; [0077] “mobile IP network”; [0080] “mobile phones, tablets, laptops”; [0095] “reports” are “presented via a Graphical User Interface”), each data record including a traffic type of a traffic activity of a mobile device, a timestamp of the traffic activity, and an identifier of the mobile device (Goyet, [0083], Goyet describes the records “timestamps of occurrence of network events”, “an identifier of the device”, and “several parameters representative of the specific protocols, applications and services used during the IP data session”; See also [0043]), the network apparatus comprising:
a processor and memory coupled with the processor (Goyet, Figure 2, Analytic System 160 comprising processing units and data warehouse), wherein the memory includes instructions that when executed by the processor causes the network apparatus to perform operations comprising:
calculate from the data records a number of mobile devices (Goyet, [0043], ”computation of a number of users 42 is based on the information extracted from the IP data records”, “having a unique identifier of the device accessing a specific resource is mandatory to support the notion of unique user (a unique user is defined by the unique identification of its device)”) having, within a given monitoring period (Goyet, [0043]. “The effective computation of the number of users is performed over a reference time period”), traffic activities that fulfil the following conditions:
i) a traffic type of the traffic activity matches a monitoring type (Goyet, [0014], “compute at least one measure (number of users) representative of the traffic dimension (traffic type)”, [0015], “the at least one traffic dimension comprises at least one of: protocols, data services, web domains, applications, and IP television (IPTV) channels” [0016], “the at least one measure comprises at least one of… a number of users”; Goyet there disclosed computing a number of users based on the records following a particular traffic type; See also [0022]-[0027] for all traffic dimensions which amount to traffic types that may be used in the calculation of the number of users);
ii) a timestamp of the traffic activity falls within the monitoring period (Goyet, [0043], “The effective computation of the number of users is performed over a reference time period, as well be detailed later. If available in the IP data records, generic information (e.g. timestamps of occurrence, identification of the related device, etc) us also memorized (in the data warehouse). This generic information is used to perform the calculation/aggregation of the number of users”; See also [0064]); and
iii) traffic activities associated with the same identifier and the same traffic activity are considered only once per monitoring period (Goyet, [0037], “The number of users 42 measures the number of unique users accessing / making use of a specific resource. Specific IP flows are taken into consideration, to compute the number of users 42 accessing / making use of this specific resource, from the perspective of a particular traffic dimension. The notion of number of unique users is defined as follows: the same user accessing / making use of the specific resource several times under predefined circumstances (for instance, a reference time period) is counted only once”); and
return a monitoring report that is based on the calculated number of mobile devices (Goyet, [0095] Goyet disclosed generating a report which is transferred to the report unit 170, to be presented to the staff of the network Operator (e.g. operational, marketing, and product development teams) via a Graphical User Interface (GUI)”).
Goyet additionally disclosed the analytic framework relying on the definition of traffic dimensions, to which the analysis of each aspect presents an added value for an etwork Operator. Goyet disclosed that the traffic dimensions defined in a specific analytic framework evolve over time, taking into consideration the evolution of IP data services available on the IP based network infrastructures, and the specific needs of the network Operators in terms of monitoring and analysis (Goyet, [0021]).
While Goyet disclosed that the system evolves according to the needs of the network Operator, Goyet did not explicitly disclose receiving a monitoring request specifying the monitoring type, the returning of the monitoring report being in response to the monitoring request.
In an analagous art, Cama disclosed receiving a monitoring request specifying the monitoring type, the returning of the monitoring report being in response to the monitoring request (Cama, [0038]-[0039], Cama disclosed based on one or more requests from the organization, a report generation engine can create one or more usage reports, and the reports can be accessible from mobile applications or through report websites, and the reports can be customized, as requested, to which the organization can specify what types of information should be included in the report; [0040] allows the organization the ability to define what traffic statistics should be included in the report, such as to identify users accessing content providers and services).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Goyet and Cama, as they both relate to reporting information regarding traffic usage, and as such, they are within similar environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate the request/response functionality of Cama within the teachings of Goyet in order to obtain the predicable results suggested by Goyet, providing the Operators of Goyet with the ability to to obtain reports specific to their needs in terms of monitoring and analysis (Goyet, [0021]).
Goyet and Cama did not explicitly disclose a first gateway node configured to route network traffic for a first set of mobile devices for which information about network traffic activities is to be reported; and
a second gateway node configured to route network traffic for a second set of mobile devices for which information about network traffic activities is not to be reported.
Claim 27 is allowable for similar reasons to claim 26.
Claim 28 is allowable by virtue of its dependency to claim 27.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments in view of the amendments filed on 4/15/2026 with respect to the pending 35 U.S.C. 101 rejections have been carefully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant asserts, “Paragraphs [0004]-[0005] of Applicant's Published Application (US 2023/0261958) identify various challenges and issues that exist when exposing network traffic information to third parties. As noted in paragraph [0005] of Applicant's Specification, there are various challenges in "reporting the number of mobile devices fulfilling certain filtering criteria without disclosing the associated device identifiers." A solution for such challenges is provided within the steps provided by the independent claims. For example, paragraphs [0068], [0071], [0076] and [0079] discuss how the claimed invention provides such a solution. Therefore the independent claims reflects an improvement to the functioning of a computer and/or to another technology or technical field, integrating any alleged judicial exception into a practical application of that exception”.
Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Applicant's Specification, (see paragraph [0079] of the PGPub 2023/0261958), recites “anonymization” as simply “not includ[ing] any information allowing to identify a particular mobile device 108 of mobile device group included in reported number of mobile devices 108”. That is, Applicant’s specification does not provide any particular details or functional steps to realize anonymization, and therefore does not provide a technical explanation of the asserted improvement. Rather, Applicant’s Specification only indicates that anonymization amounts to simply not including identification information in the report. As Applicant’s specification does not provide any particular details or specific functional steps or any technical explanation, the mere anonymizing of identification information in the report by simply not including such information does not amount to an improvement in the functioning of a computer. As noted in the 35 USC 101 rejection, the limitation reciting that the identification information is anonymized in the monitoring report is part of the mental process steps, as such is the equivalent of a user, in creating the report, deciding which information to include or not include in the report.
The rejection is therefore respectfully maintained.
In response to applicant's argument that the examiner's conclusion of obviousness is based upon improper hindsight reasoning, it must be recognized that any judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning. But so long as it takes into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made, and does not include knowledge gleaned only from the applicant's disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper. See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 170 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1971).
Applicant asserts, "Sanganabhalta does not teach or suggest, "receiving, from an application server, a monitoring request specifying a monitoring type, a geographical area to be monitored, and a monitoring period defined by a start time and end time". Applicant additionally asserts, “Sanganabhalta does not teach or suggest, “in response to receiving the monitoring request, calculating from the data records a number of mobile devices having, within the monitoring period, traffic activities that fulfil the following conditions: of i)-iv), as recited in independent claim 1” [Response, 13].
In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
The limitations raised were rejected based on a combination of references, as explicitly detailed in the rejection. Sanganabhatla was relied upon to disclose data records including a geographical area associated with the mobile device, and receiving a monitoring request specifying the monitoring type and a geographical area to be monitored, and returning of the monitoring report being in response to the monitoring request.
The rejection relies on paragraphs [0019]-[0020], in which Sanganabhatla explicitly disclosed, “the monitoring engine 108 determines information to capture from the application request 104A” and “The monitoring engine 108 determines the information in the application request 104A indicated in a configuration file or settings of the monitoring engine 108. Examples of the information that may be specified for capture include application request information such as a request date and time, request header, request uniform resource identifier (URI), operation to be performed; client profile information such as client internet protocol (IP), browser information (e.g., name, type, browser language preference, etc.), client operating system information (e.g., operating system name, operating system type, etc.) information about a client device (e.g., device manufacturer, device type, etc.), geographical information about a client (e.g., country, region, city, etc.), internet service provider (ISP); information about a user such as user identifier, a role(s) and/or group(s) the user is a member, etc.” The specific examples provided all reasonably amount to a specified monitoring type. Further, one of the examples is specific to geographic information about a client (e.g. country, region, city, etc). Additionally [0020] disclosed such information in a data store. The rejection also relies on paragraph [0056], Figure 4, 402 “Receive request to generate application analytics report(s),; [0059] “The request may be to generate a specific type of application analytics report, such as a report on a number of application hits per geographic location”). Sanganabhatla additionally disclosed the data records including a geographical area associated with the mobile device, and the calculating to include the condition of a geographical location of the traffic activity falls within the geographical area (Sanganabhatla, [0059], “an application analytics report on application hits based on geographic location may be generated for social network applications”).
The Applicant presents no arguments against the other relied upon references.
The rejection is thereby respectfully maintained.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JERRY B DENNISON whose telephone number is (571)272-3910. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5:50.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hadi Armouche can be reached at 571-270-3618. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/JERRY B DENNISON/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409
Prosecution Insights