DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the pending claims, 1-15, received 12 November 2025. Accordingly, the detailed action of claims 1-15 is as follows:
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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejections(s) presented in the previous office action have been withdrawn in view of applicant’s amendments and remarks (remarks pg 8).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
The 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection(s) presented in the previous office action have been withdrawn in view of applicant’s amendments and remarks (remarks pg 8).
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.
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.
Claim 1-2, 4-5, 7-10, 11-12, 13, 14, 15 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Price et al (US 9277472 B1, hereafter referred to as Price) in view of Altman et al (US 20170251515 A1, hereafter referred to as Altman) in view of Dhanabalan et al (US 20210092062 A1, hereafter referred to as Dhanabalan).
Regarding claim 1 Price teaches a method of apportioning data traffic between a plurality of different communication channels (Price [16:53-67] teaches selecting one of multiple types of networks, wherein the selection is automatic [16:45-50]), in which the data traffic is:
travelling to and/or from at least one user-device in a local area network, in which a plurality of network-reliant applications are used (Price [4:56-67] teaches a user device transmitting or receiving data using the communications network, wherein applications within the user device use different network infrastructure associated with different network types to communicate with servers hosted in the network [9:21-36]);
in respect of the network-reliant applications (Price [9:21-36] teaches applications using different types of network infrastructure to communicate data with a network server hosting data); and
travelling via a local area network gateway device of the local area network (Price [Fig 10-1008] teaches a network interface device which communicates data with a network), in which the local area network gateway device is configured to communicate via one or more networks outside the local area network using the plurality of different communication channels (Price [Fig 5] teaches the user device includes a plurality of antenna to communicate with a plurality of networks, hosting servers for applications running on the device [9:1-30]);
the method comprising the steps of:
in respect of each of the plurality of different communication channels, calculating a Quality of Experience, QoE, score (Price [5:39-61] teaches calculating, generating or receiving a QoE score for each communication network the device is able to access), wherein each QoE score is obtained by performing the steps of:
- identifying network characteristics of network flows (Price [Fig 7-715] teaches determining values for each of the user experience factors);
- identifying, for the one or more of said plurality of network-reliant applications, a set of one or more flow characteristic types designated as significant flow characteristic types for the network-reliant applications (Price [9:37-10:54, 12:60-21, 14:40-57 and 15:10-28] teach identifying requirements or preferences for each application); and
- calculating the QoE score for the communication channel in dependence on the identified flow characteristics of flows and on the identified flow characteristic types designated as significant flow characteristic types for the network-reliant applications in respect of which flows have been identified (Price [14:40-57 and 15:10-28] teaches determining user experience factors based on application requirements or preferences and a weight for each of the user experience factors to calculate a user experience metric); and
then apportioning between the communication channels the data traffic in dependence on the calculated QoE scores for each of the plurality of different communication channels (Price [8:46-67, 16:33-53 and 17:1-7] teaches periodically identifying and selecting a communication network based on the generated user experience metrics for each network/application combination).
However, Price does not explicitly teach identifying flows carrying the data traffic via said communication channel; identifying flow characteristics of said flows; such that the data traffic being carried on a current communication channel of the plurality of different communication channels is partially switched to at least one other communication channel of the plurality of different communication channels so that some of the data traffic is carried by the at least one other communication channel.
Altman, in an analogous art, teaches apportioning between the communication channels the data traffic in dependence on the calculated performance metrics for each of the plurality of different communication channels (Altman [0002] teaches splitting a data stream into multiple data streams which are communicated over respective multiple communication channels of different performance characteristics including a quality of service or SLA corresponding to the connection [0003-0004]) such that the data traffic being carried on a current communication channel of the plurality of different communication channels is partially switched to at least one other communication channel of the plurality of different communication channels so that some of the data traffic is carried by the at least one other communication channel (Altman [0009] teaches dynamically changing the chosen one or more connections through which the split data is communicated such that the data split into a plurality of data streams communicated over a plurality of connections of differing performance characteristics [0106-0107] is changed to different channels [0076, 0009]).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Price in view of Altman in order to configure the apportioning of data between channels in dependence on the calculated QoE score for the respective channels, as taught by Price, be such that the data traffic being carried on a current communication channel of the plurality of different communication channels is partially switched to at least one other communication channel of the plurality of different communication channels so that some of the data traffic is carried by the at least one other communication channel, as taught by Altman.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to take real-time application level measurements for optimizing performance including optimizing communication bandwidth or other output characteristics of the data in accordance with network conditions by changing the distribution of the streams (Altman [0060]).
However, Price-Altman does not explicitly teach identifying flows carrying the data traffic via said communication channel; identifying flow characteristics of said flows.
Dhanabalan, in an analogous art, teaches identifying flows carrying the data traffic via said communication channel (Dhanabalan [0014, 0004]);
identifying flow characteristics of said flows (Dhanabalan [0015, 0004]).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Price-Altman in view of Dhanabalan in order to configure calculating a QoE score, as taught by Price-Altman, further include identifying flows carrying the data traffic via said communication channel and identifying flow characteristics of said flows, as taught by Dhanabalan.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to enhance QoE being provide by an application, whereby if a QoE of an application is below a pre-established threshold then a policy is applied to a data flow to enhance the QoE of the application (Dhanabalan [0053] which results in a user experience that is satisfactory based on the computed score (Dhanabalan [0004]).
Regarding claim 2, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teach the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teaches the method wherein each communication channel is a network connection according to a specific access technology (Price [7:45-61, 9:1-20] teaches each communications network is associated with a particular access technology).
Regarding claim 4, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teach the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teaches the method wherein the communication channels include at least one cellular communication channel (Price [9:37-65]).
Regarding claim 5, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teach the limitations of claim 4, as rejected above.
Additionally, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teaches the method wherein the communication channels include more than one cellular communication channel (Price [9:37-65]).
Regarding claim 7, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teach the limitations of claim 4, as rejected above.
Additionally, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teaches the method any of the preceding claims wherein the step of obtaining the QoE, score comprises use of Deep Packet Inspection in respect of the data traffic (Dhanabalan [0086]).
Regarding claim 8, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teach the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teaches the method wherein the step of obtaining the QoE, score in respect of a communication channel is performed by the local area network gateway device (Dhanabalan [0078] discloses an QoE enhancement device, as part of an appliance, wherein the appliance is a network interface or gateway deployed as part of the local network or SDN network [0059] and determines an application QoE score [0086]).
Regarding claim 9, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teach the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teaches the method wherein the QoE, score for a communication channel is calculated in dependence on one or more characteristics in respect of data traffic being carried via said communication channel, the one or more characteristics being selected from the following:- characteristics associated with communication speed; - characteristics associated with communication delay and/or delay variation; - characteristics associated with reliability; - characteristics associated with data loss; - characteristics associated with error rate; - characteristics associated with communications quality (Dhanabalan [0015], Altman [0004]). Likewise, Price [2:60-65]).
Regarding claim 10, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teach the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teaches the method wherein different flow characteristic types are designated as significant flow characteristic types for different network-reliant applications (Price [9:37-10:54, 12:60-21, 14:40-57 and 15:10-28] teach identifying requirements or preferences for each application).
Regarding claim 11, it does not teach or further limit over the limitations presented above with respect to claim 1.
Therefore, claim 11 is rejected for the same reasons set forth above regarding claim 1.
Regarding claim 12, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teach the limitations of claim 11, as rejected above.
Additionally, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teaches the method wherein the apparatus comprises the local area network gateway device (Dhanabalan [0078] discloses an QoE enhancement device, as part of an appliance, wherein the appliance is a network interface or gateway deployed as part of the local network or SDN network [0059] and determines an application QoE score [0086]).
Regarding claim 13, it does not teach or further limit over the limitations presented above with respect to claim 1.
Therefore, claim 13 is rejected for the same reasons set forth above regarding claim 1.
Regarding claims 14 and 15, they do not teach or further limit over the limitations presented above with respect to claims 9 and 10.
Therefore, claims 14 and 15 are rejected for the same reasons set forth above regarding claims 9 and 10.
Claims 3, 6 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Price et al (US 9277472 B1, hereafter referred to as Price) in view of Altman et al (US 20170251515 A1, hereafter referred to as Altman) in view of Dhanabalan et al (US 20210092062 A1, hereafter referred to as Dhanabalan) as applied above regarding claim 1, further in view of Muley et al (US 20160262073 A1, hereafter referred to as Muley).
Regarding claim 3, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teach the limitations of claim 1, as rejected above.
However, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan does not explicitly teach the method wherein the communication channels include at least one Digital Subscriber Line, xDSL communication channel.
Muley, in an analogous art, teaches the method wherein the communication channels include at least one Digital Subscriber Line, xDSL communication channel (muley [0003, 0027, 0028]).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Price-Altman-Dhanabalan in view of Muley in order to configure the communication channels, as taught by Price-Altman-Dhanabalan, include at least one Digital Subscriber Line, xDSL communication channel, as taught by Muley.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to add additional capacity to increase upstream or downstream bandwidth and improve resilience and survivability through multiple bonded bearers (Muley [0031]).
Regarding claim 6, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan teach the limitations of claim 4, as rejected above.
However, Price-Altman-Dhanabalan does not explicitly teach the method wherein the communication channels include at least one of 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G.
Muley, in an analogous art, teaches the method wherein the communication channels include at least one of 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G (Muley [0003, 0027, 0028]).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Price-Altman-Dhanabalan in view of Muley in order to configure the communication channels, as taught by Price-Altman-Dhanabalan, include at least one of 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G, as taught by Muley.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to add additional capacity to increase upstream or downstream bandwidth and improve resilience and survivability through multiple bonded bearers (Muley [0031]).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-13 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.
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 SHEAN TOKUTA whose telephone number is (571)272-5145. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH 630-430.
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SHEAN TOKUTA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2446
/SHEAN TOKUTA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2446