DETAILED ACTION
In response to communications filed 04/07/2026.
Claims 44-63 are pending for examination.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 05/11/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 44-63 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Meempat et al. (US 2021/0352530 A1) in view of Cui et al. (US 2015/0312776 A1) hereinafter “Meempat” and “Cui” respectively.
Regarding Claim 44, Meempat teaches A method of a supervising device (Meempat: paragraph 0094 & Fig. 6, computing device) of enabling mitigation of radio traffic overload (Meempat: paragraphs 0016, 0029 & Fig. 1, redistributing carrier aggregation traffic due to heavy load or network congestion) in at least one radio cell among a group of radio cells (Meempat: paragraph 0016 & Fig. 1, redistributing traffic amongst a plurality of cells), comprising:
acquiring a radio traffic capacity utilization metric of each of the group of radio cells (Meempat: paragraph 0016, calculating a throughput of each cell of the plurality of cells and calculating a total throughput of the plurality of cell);
acquiring a proposed measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraphs 0029-0032, redistribute traffic due to heavy load/network congestion or during periods of high network traffic greater than a threshold);
determining, based on the acquired radio traffic capacity utilization metrics and the acquired proposed measures to be taken (Meempat: paragraph 0016 & said obtaining throughput of each cell and total throughput of the plurality of cells for redistribution of traffic), a selected measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, redistributing the carrier aggregated traffic amongst the plurality of cells based on the throughput of each cell and the total throughput); and
instructing the device serving said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0017 & Fig. 1, access point) to apply the selected measure for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraphs 0016, each cell obtains a respective portion of the carrier aggregated traffic as part of the redistributing),
wherein the radio traffic capacity utilization metric is a ratio between currently utilized traffic capacity of the cell and tell traffic capacity of the cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, ratio of the throughput of the cell relative to the total throughput; see also paragraphs 0059, 0066 & 0094).
Meempat fails to explicitly teach a supervising device acquiring one or more proposed measures from a device serving at least one radio cell and from a device serving at least one of its neighbouring radio cells in the group. However, Cui from an analogous art similarly teaches a network management device obtaining cell characteristic data associated with a service access point and a neighbor access point to improve handover (HO)/cell reselection decisions, increase load balancing performance and/or reduce call drop rate (Cui: paragraphs 0036-0037 & Fig. 3B; see also paragraph 0033, access points indicate cell characteristic data including resource status, overload, and/or traffic load).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Meempat to include obtaining characteristic data between multiple base stations as taught by Cui so as to further mitigate interference and/or overload between devices of respective radio cells.
Regarding Claim 45, Meempat teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches sending a request, to the device serving said at least one radio cell and to the device serving said at least one neighbouring cell for the proposed measure to be taken (Cui: paragraph 0051, setup request including characteristic/capability data to facilitate load balancing); and
receiving, in response to the sent requests, the proposed measure to be taken from each of the devices (Cui: paragraph 0051, response message including characteristic/capability data to facilitate load balancing, handover decisions and/or Inter-cell interference coordination). Examiner recites same reasoning to combine Meempat-Cui as presented in rejected claim 44.
Regarding Claim 46, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches wherein the request sent to the device serving said at least one radio cell and to the device serving said at least one neighbouring cell for the proposed measure to be taken comprises one or more of: a unique identifier of the device serving the cell indicated to be subjected to the radio traffic, a description of a radio traffic overload event occurring including time when the event is predicted to occur, severity and duration of the radio traffic overload event occurring, an indication of which slice or slices will experience the radio traffic overload event, one or more channels that will experience the overload event, and an indication of whether the radio traffic overload event occurs in downlink, uplink or both (Cui: paragraph 0028, cell characteristic data associated with the access points and neighbor access points including identifiers). Examiner recites same reasoning to combine Meempat-Cui as presented in rejected claim 44.
Regarding Claim 47, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches selecting, from the proposed measures, the measure which mitigates the radio traffic overload in said at least one radio cell the most, while not causing radio traffic load in said at least one neighbouring radio cell to increase, as indicated by the acquired radio traffic capacity utilization metric of each of the group of radio cells (Meempat: paragraph 0045, load balancing and weight assignment for particular cells, thus teaching a scenario in which traffic load to a neighboring cell is not increased).
Regarding Claim 48, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches wherein the determining of the selected measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell is based on machine learning (Meempat: paragraph 0041, traffic from each CA device may have a characteristic of self-load balancing).
Regarding Claim 49, Meempat teaches A method of a device (Meempat: paragraph 0017 & Fig. 1, access point or base station) serving at least one radio cell of enabling mitigation of radio traffic overload (Meempat: paragraphs 0016, 0029 & Fig. 1, redistributing carrier aggregation traffic due to heavy load or network congestion) in said at least one radio cell among a group of radio cells (Meempat: paragraph 0016 & Fig. 1, redistributing traffic amongst a plurality of cells), comprising:
receiving, from a supervising device (Meempat: paragraph 0094 & Fig. 6, computing device), a request for a proposed measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraphs 0029-0032, redistribute traffic due to heavy load/network congestion or during periods of high network traffic greater than a threshold);
acquiring a radio traffic capacity utilization metric of at least one neighbouring radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, calculating a throughput of each cell of the plurality of cells and calculating a total throughput of the plurality of cell);
acquiring a proposed measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraphs 0029-0032, redistribute traffic due to heavy load/network congestion or during periods of high network traffic greater than a threshold);
determining, a measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, redistributing the carrier aggregated traffic amongst the plurality of cells based on the throughput of each cell and the total throughput);
determining, based on the acquired radio traffic capacity utilization metric, the acquired proposed measure to be taken for the at least one neighbouring cell and the determined measure to be taken for said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016 & said obtaining throughput of each cell and total throughput of the plurality of cells for redistribution of traffic), a selected measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, redistributing the carrier aggregated traffic amongst the plurality of cells based on the throughput of each cell and the total throughput); and
applying the selected measure for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraphs 0016, each cell obtains a respective portion of the carrier aggregated traffic as part of the redistributing),
wherein the radio traffic capacity utilization metric is a ratio between currently utilized traffic capacity of the cell and tell traffic capacity of the cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, ratio of the throughput of the cell relative to the total throughput; see also paragraphs 0059, 0066 & 0094).
Meempat fails to explicitly teach a supervising device acquiring one or more proposed measures from a device serving at least one radio cell and from a device serving at least one of its neighbouring radio cells in the group. However, Cui from an analogous art similarly teaches a network management device obtaining cell characteristic data associated with a service access point and a neighbor access point to improve handover (HO)/cell reselection decisions, increase load balancing performance and/or reduce call drop rate (Cui: paragraphs 0036-0037 & Fig. 3B; see also paragraph 0033, access points indicate cell characteristic data including resource status, overload, and/or traffic load).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Meempat to include obtaining characteristic data between multiple base stations as taught by Cui so as to further mitigate interference and/or overload between devices of respective radio cells.
Regarding Claim 50, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches sending a request, to the device serving said at least one neighbouring cell for the proposed measure to be taken (Cui: paragraph 0051, setup request including characteristic/capability data to facilitate load balancing); and
receiving, in response to the sent request, the proposed measure to be taken from the device (Cui: paragraph 0051, response message including characteristic/capability data to facilitate load balancing, handover decisions and/or Inter-cell interference coordination). Examiner recites same reasoning to combine Meempat-Cui as presented in rejected claim 49.
Regarding Claim 51, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches wherein the request received from the supervising device and sent to the device serving said at least one neighbouring cell comprises one or more of: a unique identifier of the device serving the cell indicated to be subjected to the radio traffic, a description of a radio traffic overload event occurring including time when the event is predicted to occur, severity and duration of the radio traffic overload event occurring, an indication of which slice or slices will experience the radio traffic overload event, one or more channels that will experience the overload event, and an indication of whether the radio traffic overload event occurs in downlink, uplink or both (Cui: paragraph 0028, cell characteristic data associated with the access points and neighbor access points including identifiers). Examiner recites same reasoning to combine Meempat-Cui as presented in rejected claim 49.
Regarding Claim 52, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches selecting, from the proposed measures and the determined measure, the measure which mitigates the radio traffic overload in said at least one radio cell the most, while not causing radio traffic load in said at least one neighbouring radio cell to increase, as indicated by the acquired radio traffic capacity utilization metric of each of the group of radio cells (Meempat: paragraph 0045, load balancing and weight assignment for particular cells, thus teaching a scenario in which traffic load to a neighboring cell is not increased).
Regarding Claim 53, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches wherein the determining of the measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell and/or the determining of the selected measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell is based on machine learning (Meempat: paragraph 0041, traffic from each CA device may have a characteristic of self-load balancing).
Regarding Claim 54, Meempat teaches A supervising device (Meempat: paragraph 0094 & Fig. 6, computing device) configured to enable mitigation of radio traffic overload (Meempat: paragraphs 0016, 0029 & Fig. 1, redistributing carrier aggregation traffic due to heavy load or network congestion) in at least one radio cell among a group of radio cells (Meempat: paragraph 0016 & Fig. 1, redistributing traffic amongst a plurality of cells), the supervising device comprising a processing unit and a memory (Meempat: paragraphs 0095 & 0101, controller and memory), said memory containing instructions executable by said processing unit (Meempat: paragraph 0101, storage for executing computer instructions), whereby the supervising device is configured to:
acquire a radio traffic capacity utilization metric of each of the group of radio cells (Meempat: paragraph 0016, calculating a throughput of each cell of the plurality of cells and calculating a total throughput of the plurality of cell);
acquire a proposed measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraphs 0029-0032, redistribute traffic due to heavy load/network congestion or during periods of high network traffic greater than a threshold);
determine based on the acquired radio traffic capacity utilization metrics and the acquired proposed measures to be taken (Meempat: paragraph 0016 & said obtaining throughput of each cell and total throughput of the plurality of cells for redistribution of traffic), a selected measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, redistributing the carrier aggregated traffic amongst the plurality of cells based on the throughput of each cell and the total throughput); and
instruct the device serving said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0017 & Fig. 1, access point) to apply the selected measure for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraphs 0016, each cell obtains a respective portion of the carrier aggregated traffic as part of the redistributing),
wherein the radio traffic capacity utilization metric is a ratio between currently utilized traffic capacity of the cell and tell traffic capacity of the cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, ratio of the throughput of the cell relative to the total throughput; see also paragraphs 0059, 0066 & 0094).
Meempat fails to explicitly teach a supervising device acquiring one or more proposed measures from a device serving at least one radio cell and from a device serving at least one of its neighbouring radio cells in the group. However, Cui from an analogous art similarly teaches a network management device obtaining cell characteristic data associated with a service access point and a neighbor access point to improve handover (HO)/cell reselection decisions, increase load balancing performance and/or reduce call drop rate (Cui: paragraphs 0036-0037 & Fig. 3B; see also paragraph 0033, access points indicate cell characteristic data including resource status, overload, and/or traffic load).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Meempat to include obtaining characteristic data between multiple base stations as taught by Cui so as to further mitigate interference and/or overload between devices of respective radio cells.
Regarding Claim 55, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches send a request, to the device serving said at least one radio cell and to the device serving said at least one neighbouring cell for the proposed measure to be taken (Cui: paragraph 0051, setup request including characteristic/capability data to facilitate load balancing); and
receive, in response to the sent requests, the proposed measure to be taken from each of the devices (Cui: paragraph 0051, response message including characteristic/capability data to facilitate load balancing, handover decisions and/or Inter-cell interference coordination). Examiner recites same reasoning to combine Meempat-Cui as presented in rejected claim 54.
Regarding Claim 56, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches wherein the request sent to the device serving said at least one radio cell and to the device serving said at least one neighbouring cell for the proposed measure to be taken is configured to comprise one or more of: a unique identifier of the device serving the cell indicated to be subjected to the radio traffic, a description of a radio traffic overload event occurring including time when the event is predicted to occur, severity and duration of the radio traffic overload event occurring, an indication of which slice or slices will experience the radio traffic overload event, one or more channels that will experience the overload event, and an indication of whether the radio traffic overload event occurs in downlink, uplink or both (Cui: paragraph 0028, cell characteristic data associated with the access points and neighbor access points including identifiers). Examiner recites same reasoning to combine Meempat-Cui as presented in rejected claim 54.
Regarding Claim 57, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches detect from the acquired radio traffic capacity utilization metrics that a radio traffic overload event is indicated to occur in said at least one radio cell among the group of radio cells (Meempat: paragraph 0033, generate forecasts of traffic based on traffic projections).
Regarding Claim 58, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches select, from the proposed measures, the measure which mitigates the radio traffic overload in said at least one radio cell the most, while not causing radio traffic load in said at least one neighbouring radio cell to increase, as indicated by the acquired radio traffic capacity utilization metric of each of the group of radio cells (Meempat: paragraph 0045, load balancing and weight assignment for particular cells, thus teaching a scenario in which traffic load to a neighboring cell is not increased).
Regarding Claim 59, Meempat teaches A device (Meempat: paragraph 0017 & Fig. 1, access point or base station) serving at least one radio cell being configured to enable mitigation of radio traffic overload (Meempat: paragraphs 0016, 0029 & Fig. 1, redistributing carrier aggregation traffic due to heavy load or network congestion) in said at least one radio cell among a group of radio cells (Meempat: paragraph 0016 & Fig. 1, redistributing traffic amongst a plurality of cells), the device comprising a processing unit (Meempat: paragraph 0101 & Fig. 4, processor) and a memory (Meempat: paragraph 0101 & Fig. 4, memory), said memory containing instructions executable by said processing unit (Meempat: paragraph 0101 & Fig. 4, software code to control processor), whereby the device is configured to:
receive, from a supervising device (Meempat: paragraph 0094 & Fig. 6, computing device), a request for a proposed measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraphs 0029-0032, redistribute traffic due to heavy load/network congestion or during periods of high network traffic greater than a threshold);
acquire a radio traffic capacity utilization metric of at least one neighbouring radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, calculating a throughput of each cell of the plurality of cells and calculating a total throughput of the plurality of cell);
acquire a proposed measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraphs 0029-0032, redistribute traffic due to heavy load/network congestion or during periods of high network traffic greater than a threshold);
determine, a measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, redistributing the carrier aggregated traffic amongst the plurality of cells based on the throughput of each cell and the total throughput);
determine, based on the acquired radio traffic capacity utilization metric, the acquired proposed measure to be taken for the at least one neighbouring cell and the determined measure to be taken for said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016 & said obtaining throughput of each cell and total throughput of the plurality of cells for redistribution of traffic), a selected measure to be taken for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, redistributing the carrier aggregated traffic amongst the plurality of cells based on the throughput of each cell and the total throughput); and
apply the selected measure for mitigating radio traffic overload of said at least one radio cell (Meempat: paragraphs 0016, each cell obtains a respective portion of the carrier aggregated traffic as part of the redistributing),
wherein the radio traffic capacity utilization metric is a ratio between currently utilized traffic capacity of the cell and tell traffic capacity of the cell (Meempat: paragraph 0016, ratio of the throughput of the cell relative to the total throughput; see also paragraphs 0059, 0066 & 0094).
Meempat fails to explicitly teach a supervising device acquiring one or more proposed measures from a device serving at least one radio cell and from a device serving at least one of its neighbouring radio cells in the group. However, Cui from an analogous art similarly teaches a network management device obtaining cell characteristic data associated with a service access point and a neighbor access point to improve handover (HO)/cell reselection decisions, increase load balancing performance and/or reduce call drop rate (Cui: paragraphs 0036-0037 & Fig. 3B; see also paragraph 0033, access points indicate cell characteristic data including resource status, overload, and/or traffic load).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Meempat to include obtaining characteristic data between multiple base stations as taught by Cui so as to further mitigate interference and/or overload between devices of respective radio cells.
Regarding Claim 60, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches acquire a confirmation from the supervising device that the determined selected measure to be taken should be applied (Meempat: paragraph 0016, redistributing the carrier aggregated traffic amongst the plurality of cells based on the throughput of each cell and the total throughput).
Regarding Claim 61, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches send a request, to the device serving said at least one neighbouring cell for the proposed measure to be taken (Cui: paragraph 0051, setup request including characteristic/capability data to facilitate load balancing); and
receive, in response to the sent request, the proposed measure to be taken from the device (Cui: paragraph 0051, response message including characteristic/capability data to facilitate load balancing, handover decisions and/or Inter-cell interference coordination). Examiner recites same reasoning to combine Meempat-Cui as presented in rejected claim 59.
Regarding Claim 62, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches wherein the request received from the supervising device and sent to the device serving said at least one neighbouring cell is configured to comprise one or more of: a unique identifier of the device serving the cell indicated to be subjected to the radio traffic, a description of a radio traffic overload event occurring including time when the event is predicted to occur, severity and duration of the radio traffic overload event occurring, an indication of which slice or slices will experience the radio traffic overload event, one or more channels that will experience the overload event, and an indication of whether the radio traffic overload event occurs in downlink, uplink or both(Cui: paragraph 0028, cell characteristic data associated with the access points and neighbor access points including identifiers). Examiner recites same reasoning to combine Meempat-Cui as presented in rejected claim 59.
Regarding Claim 63, Meempat-Cui teaches the respective claim(s) as presented above and further teaches select, from the proposed measures and the determined measure, the measure which mitigates the radio traffic overload in said at least one radio cell the most, while not causing radio traffic load in said at least one neighbouring radio cell to increase, as indicated by the acquired radio traffic capacity utilization metric of each of the group of radio cells (Meempat: paragraph 0045, load balancing and weight assignment for particular cells, thus teaching a scenario in which traffic load to a neighboring cell is not increased).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to amended claims 44, 49, 54 and 59 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Conclusion
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/NAJEEB ANSARI/Examiner, Art Unit 2463
/ASAD M NAWAZ/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2463
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