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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Acknowledgment is made for the applicant’s response and amendment filed on 12/10/2025.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12/10/2025 has been entered.
Remarks
The claims are presented as follows:
Claims 1, 9 and 17 are amended.
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claims have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tinnakornsrisuphap et al. Publication No. (US 2013/0102313 A1) in view of Krishna et al. Patent No. (US 8,867,490 B1).
Regarding claim 1, Tinnakornsrisuphap teaches a method comprising steps of:
determining cellular throughput, over a cellular link, available to a given subscriber (access terminal 820 may support wireless wide area network (WWAN) service e.g., cellular service from macro cell access point 860 [0010-12] FIG.8);
determining wired broadband speed to the given subscriber where the wired broadband speed is to a gateway providing a Wi-Fi network (the access terminal may also support at least one other type of wireless service (e.g., Wi-Fi) from femtohm access point 830 [0010-12] FIG.8);
analyzing the cellular throughput and the wired broadband speed (determine whether to offload an access terminal based on a decision to redirect an access terminal may be based on one or more of the following factors: throughput on the Wi-Fi channel and/or the cellular channel, interference on the Wi-Fi channel and/or the cellular channel, and determine whether to offload an access terminal For example, a decision to redirect an access terminal may be based on one or more of the following factors: throughput on the Wi-Fi channel and/or the cellular channel, interference on the Wi-Fi channel and/or the cellular channel [0015-16] steps 404 and 408 FIG.4); and
Tinnakornsrisuphap does not explicitly teach based on the analyzing, causing one or more wireless devices associated with the subscriber to prefer, via a configuration setting based on at least one of the cellular throughput or wired broadband, one of the cellular link [[and]] or the Wi-Fi network.
Krishna teaches based on the analyzing, causing one or more wireless devices associated with the subscriber to prefer, via a configuration setting based on at least one of the cellular throughput or wired broadband, one of the cellular link or the Wi-Fi network (Krishna: AP 402 determines when and whether to handoff and offload data between cellular networks and Wi-Fi networks. A handoff from the cellular network to the Wi-Fi network or from the Wi-Fi network to the cellular network may be based on a set of criteria. The set of criteria may be based on any combination of network policies and characteristics, QoS requirements of the UE (such as whether the UE is a subscriber with premium services or standard services), the type of application (e.g., video versus HTTP traffic), network performance, load-balancing metrics, and the like. Performance and load-balancing metrics may include the level of traffic congestion, the degree of latency, the throughput, or other metrics. The metrics may be monitored on the cellular network and the Wi-Fi network Col.5, lines 5-60, FIG.4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to have modified Tinnakornsrisuphap by the teaching of Krishna to cause the subscriber device to prefer cellular link or the Wi-Fi network based on the cellular throughput or wired broadband in order to improve a level of traffic congestion, a degree of latency, and a throughput (Krishna: Col.5, lines 20-24, FIG.4).
Regarding claim 2, Tinnakornsrisuphap teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the steps further include: performing the analyzing based on a network event including any of congestion and an outage (the acquired information is indicative of traffic congestion. The type of information acquired here may depend on the type of communication link (e.g., RAT or backhaul) for the traffic [0051-54] FIG.4)
Regarding claim 3, Tinnakornsrisuphap teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the steps further include: performing the analyzing based on an outage of a wired connection to the gateway, wherein the causing includes instructing the gateway to turn off the Wi-Fi network (an access terminal (e.g., a smartphone) may always connect to a known Wi-Fi access if it is found. In addition, such an access terminal will typically turn off Wi-Fi access when the display screen of the access terminal is turned-off and instead use a cellular data mode to reduce battery consumption [0012] FIG.2).
Regarding claim 4, Tinnakornsrisuphap teaches the method of claim 3, wherein the steps further include: subsequent to a recovery of the outage, causing the gateway to turn on the Wi-Fi network (Wi-Fi may be selected whenever Wi-Fi service is detected and the display of the access terminal 102 is turned-on [0040-43] FIG.2).
Regarding claim 5, Tinnakornsrisuphap teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the analyzing includes any of: comparing the cellular throughput and the wired broadband speed; determining congestion over the cellular link and/or the Wi-Fi network; and deciding to prefer, via the configuration setting, the one of the cellular link and the Wi-Fi network based on the comparing and/or the congestion (the access point may redirect a cellular-capable access terminal from Wi-Fi to cellular if the Wi-Fi is congested and the backhaul for the access point is not a bottleneck. The access point may then redirect the access terminal back to Wi-Fi when the Wi-Fi congestion condition has recovered [0014] FIG.4).
Regarding claim 6, Tinnakornsrisuphap teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the steps further include: determining Wi-Fi bandwidth to the one or more wireless devices, wherein the analyzing further includes analyzing the cellular throughput, the wired broadband speed, and the Wi-Fi bandwidth (Backhaul congestion may be indicated if the aggregate cellular and Wi-Fi throughput is close to the available bandwidth on the backhaul, an access point may monitor the aggregate cellular and Wi-Fi throughput over time to perform backhaul probing to detect congestion and available bandwidth on the backhaul. For example, the access point may monitor response times, download times, upload times, or other factors to measure congestion and/or bandwidth [0068-69] FIG.2).
Regarding claim 7, Tinnakornsrisuphap teaches the method of claim 6, wherein the analyzing includes any of: comparing the cellular throughput and the Wi-Fi bandwidth; determining congestion over the cellular link and/or the Wi-Fi network; and deciding to prefer, via the configuration setting, the one of the cellular link and the Wi-Fi network based on the comparing and/or the congestion (Backhaul congestion may be indicated if the aggregate cellular and Wi-Fi throughput is close to the available bandwidth on the backhaul, an access point may monitor the aggregate cellular and Wi-Fi throughput over time to perform backhaul probing to detect congestion and available bandwidth on the backhaul. [0068-69] FIG.2).
Regarding claim 8, Tinnakornsrisuphap teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the causing includes instructing Wi-Fi infrastructure associated with the Wi-Fi network to disassociate from the one or more wireless devices and ignore subsequent association requests therefrom (the access point may redirect a cellular-capable access terminal from Wi-Fi to cellular if the Wi-Fi is congested and the backhaul for the access point is not a bottleneck. The access point may then redirect the access terminal back to Wi-Fi when the Wi-Fi congestion condition has recovered [0014] FIG.4).
Regarding claims 9-16, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-8, where the difference used is the limitations were presented from a “cloud service” side with processors and memory (Tinnakornsrisuphap: [0150] FIG.1) and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims and interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Regarding claims 17-20, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1-8, where the difference used is the limitations were presented from a “cloud service” side with processors and memory (Tinnakornsrisuphap: [0153] FIG.6) and the wordings of the claims were interchanged within the claim itself or some of the claims were presented as a combination of two or more previously presented limitations. This change does not affect the limitation of the above treated claims. Adding these phrases to the claims and interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Conclusion
When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111 (c).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABDELNABI O MUSA whose telephone number is (571)270-1901, and email address is abdelnabi.musa@uspto.gov ‘preferred’. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9:00 am - 5:00 pm.
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/ABDELNABI O MUSA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2472