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 Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 5-6, 10-12, 15-17, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 as being anticipated by NPL - 8rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; Management and orchestration; Study on enhancement of Management Data Analytics (MDA) (Release 17)", 3GPP STANDARD; TECHNICAL REPORT; 3GPP TR 28.809, 3RD GENERATION PARTNERSHIP PROJECT (8GPP), MOBILE COMPETENCE CENTRE ; 650, ROUTE DES LUCIOLES ; F-06921 SOPHIA-ANTIPOLIS CEDEX ; FRANCE no. V1.1.0 4 December 2020 (2020-12-04), pages 1-93, XP051961771, (from IDS filed by Applicant9/12/24).
1. A network issue information sending method, applied to a first apparatus (NPL: "MDAS producer") (see in particular page 12, section 4.1 Overview; page 14/15, section 5.2 Management interaction with NWDAF and gNB; figure 5.2-1), wherein the method comprises:
receive a first request, wherein the first request includes one or more of the following: a network issue query condition or network issue indication information (NPL: procedure may be triggered by the request or periodically; page 21, 6.2.1.3.1, page 87, section 6.99.2.1 – e.g., The consumer submits a request to MDAS producer to subscribe to the MDA reports … the consumer may indicate the method that the MDA reports are to be reported);
in response to the first request, determining first information ("analytics report ") about a network issue, wherein the first information comprises one or more of the following: identification information of the network issue, diagnosis information of the network issue, or recovery information of the network issue, the diagnosis information describes an analysis result of the network issue, and the recovery information describes a recovery status of the network issue ("Once the coverage issue is detected, the MDAS producer provides the analytics report that precisely describes the coverage issue, and the analytics report needs to contain sufficient information to enable the MDAS consumer (e.g., SON CCO function) to take the remedy actions. The MDAS producer may also provide the recommended actions to solve the identified coverage issue in the analytics report" page 17, section 6.1.1.1 Use case; "REQ-ALARM_MDA-01: The MDAS producer should have a capability to provide the analytics report describing the alarm incident analysis. REQ-ALARM_MDA-02: The analytics report describing the alarm incident should include the following information: - Alarm incident Identifier, - List of Correlated Alarms, performance measurements, - The start time and end time of the Alarm incident, - The root cause or root alarm of the Alarm incident, - Severity level, - Affected objects, - Recommended actions" page 49, section 6.4.1.2 Potential requirements: The MDAS producer provides an analytics report describing the alarm incident analysis on detection of a network issue / alarm. The analytics report comprises an alarm incident identifier; List of Correlated Alarms, performance measurements; start time and end time of the Alarm incident; root cause or root alarm of the Alarm incident; Severity level; Affected objects and recommended actions. Where the List of Correlated Alarms, performance measurements; start time and end time of the Alarm incident; root cause or root alarm of the Alarm incident; Severity level and Affected objects correspond to diagnosis information of the network issue / analysis result and the recommended actions correspond to a recovery information / status); and
b) sending the first information to a second apparatus ("The MDAS producer may also provide the recommended actions to solve the identified coverage issue in the analytics report, so that the MDAS consumer can execute the actions accordingly or by taking the recommended actions into account." page 17, section 6.1.1.1 Use case; figure 5.2-1: The MDAS producer sends the analytics report to an MDAS consumer).
wherein the identification information of the network issue includes one or more of the following: a type of the network issue, or an object of the network issue, the type of the network issue includes one [[or more]] of the following: coverage, a rate, a capacity, a device fault, service experience, mobility, or energy consumption (NPL: The analytics report describing the coverage issue contains the following information: - Coverage issue identifier: The identifier of the coverage issue; - Coverage issue type indication: Indication that the coverage issue is weak coverage or coverage hole, pilot pollution, overshoot coverage, or DL and UL channel coverage mismatch - page 17, section 6, 6.1.1.1 Use case; page 20, section 6.2 Resource related issues, 6.2.1 RAN user plane congestion analysis, 6.2.1.1 Use case - page 47, section 6.3.7 Jitter analysis), and the object of the network issue includes one [[or more]] of the following: location information, a network element, a cell, or a terminal user (NPL: Location: The geographical area and location where the coverage issue exists; ... - Affected objects: The MOls of the cells affected by the coverage issue; .. - Recommended actions: ...page 19, section 6.1.1.3.3 Analytics report for coverage issue;
wherein the coverage corresponds to one or more of the following network issues: a coverage rate is less than a first coverage rate threshold, the coverage rate is greater than a second coverage rate threshold, reference signal received power is less than a reference signal received power threshold, a signal to interference plus noise ratio is less than a signal to interference plus noise ratio threshold, or there is no coverage (NPL: e.g., the coverage hole is a more severe problem and would further lead to the UE out of service in the area - page 17, section 6, 6.1.1.1 Use case; page 20, section 6.2 Resource related issues, 6.2.1 RAN user plane congestion analysis, 6.2.1.1 Use case - page 47, section 6.3.7 Jitter analysis);
wherein the determining the coverage rate includes determining one or more of the rate is less than a first rate threshold, a quantity of low-rate users is greater than a first quantity threshold, or a quantity of high-rate users is less than a second quantity threshold, wherein the determining the quantity of the low-rate user includes determining a user whose rate is less than a second rate threshold, and the determining the quantity of the high-rate user includes determining a user whose rate is greater than a third rate threshold
wherein the determining the capacity includes determining one or more of a network load is greater than a load threshold, the network load is unbalanced, or a network is congested;
wherein the determining the device fault includes determining one or more of a base station fault, a fronthaul fault, an optical interface fault, a clock fault, a cell fault, or a standing wave fault;
wherein the determining the service experience includes determining one or more of a delay is greater than a delay threshold, a delay jitter is greater than a delay jitter threshold, an access success rate is less than an access success rate threshold, a call drop rate is greater than a call drop rate threshold, a packet loss rate is greater than a packet loss rate threshold, or a mean opinion score is less than a mean opinion score threshold, wherein the mean opinion score describes voice or video quality;
wherein the determining the mobility includes determining one or more of a handover success rate is less than a handover success rate threshold, a premature handover rate is greater than a premature handover rate threshold, a delayed handover rate is greater than a delayed handover rate threshold, or a ping-pong handover rate is greater than a ping-pong handover rate threshold; and
wherein the determining the energy consumption includes determining one or more of the energy consumption is greater than an energy consumption threshold, or a traffic volume is lower than a traffic volume threshold, but the energy consumption is greater than the energy consumption threshold. (NPL: page 17-20, section 6.2, 6.2.1, 6.2.1.1, page 47, section 6.3.7)
5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the determining the diagnosis information of the network issue includes determining one or more of a cause of the network issue, a recovery capability corresponding to the network issue, a recovery suggestion for the network issue, or a predicted recovery result of the network issue; wherein the determining the recovery capability includes determining the first apparatus is able to recover the network issue or the first apparatus is not able to recover the network issue; wherein the determining the recovery suggestion for the network issue includes determining an operation of the first apparatus to recover the network issue; and wherein the determining the predicted recovery result of the network issue includes determining a predicted network performance indicator obtained after the network issue is recovered (NPL: the analytics report needs to contain sufficient information to enable the MDAS consumer (e.g., SON CCO function) to take the remedy actions. The MDAS producer may also provide the recommended actions to solve the identified coverage issue in the analytics report, so that the MDAS consumer can execute the actions accordingly or by taking the recommended actions into account." page 17, section 6.1 Coverage related issues, 6.1.1 Coverage issue analysis, 6.1.1.1 Use case).
Regarding claims 6, 10-12, 15-17, 20, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1, 5, where the difference used is a “apparatus” with a processor and a memory (NPL: Referring to FIG. 4.2.1, the device includes a processor, a memory) 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 arid interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 5-6, 10-12, 15-17, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 as being anticipated by Yao US 2021/037400 (from IDS filed by Applicant9/12/24).
1. A network issue information sending method, applied to a first apparatus (Yao: "MDAS producer"), wherein the method comprises:
receive a first request, wherein the first request includes one or more of the following: a network issue query condition or network issue indication information (Yao: [0101, 0103] The MDAS producer sends notifications about readiness of the analytics report file to the consumers who have subscribed to the analytics reports on coverage issues);
in response to the first request, determining first information ("analytics report ") about a network issue, wherein the first information comprises one or more of the following: identification information of the network issue, diagnosis information of the network issue, or recovery information of the network issue, the diagnosis information describes an analysis result of the network issue, and the recovery information describes a recovery status of the network issue (Yao: [0073] the MDA can identify ongoing issues impacting the performance of the network and service, and discover in advance the potential issues that would cause potential failure and/or performance degradation. MDA can also assist to predict the network and service demand to enable the timely resource provisioning); and
b) sending the first information to a second apparatus (Yao: [0073] deployments which would allow fast time-to-market network and service deployment).
wherein the identification information of the network issue includes one or more of the following: a type of the network issue, or an object of the network issue, the type of the network issue includes one [[or more]] of the following: coverage, a rate, a capacity, a device fault, service experience, mobility, or energy consumption (Yao: [0101-0102] coverage issues), and the object of the network issue includes one [[or more]] of the following: location information, a network element, a cell, or a terminal user (Yao: [0102]: the geographical area and location where the coverage issue exists);
wherein the coverage corresponds to one or more of the following network issues: a coverage rate is less than a first coverage rate threshold, the coverage rate is greater than a second coverage rate threshold, reference signal received power is less than a reference signal received power threshold, a signal to interference plus noise ratio is less than a signal to interference plus noise ratio threshold, or there is no coverage (Yao: [0080]: A coverage hole is a more severe problem and would further lead to out of service issues in the area);
wherein the determining the coverage rate includes determining one or more of the rate is less than a first rate threshold, a quantity of low-rate users is greater than a first quantity threshold, or a quantity of high-rate users is less than a second quantity threshold, wherein the determining the quantity of the low-rate user includes determining a user whose rate is less than a second rate threshold, and the determining the quantity of the high-rate user includes determining a user whose rate is greater than a third rate threshold
wherein the determining the capacity includes determining one or more of a network load is greater than a load threshold, the network load is unbalanced, or a network is congested;
wherein the determining the device fault includes determining one or more of a base station fault, a fronthaul fault, an optical interface fault, a clock fault, a cell fault, or a standing wave fault;
wherein the determining the service experience includes determining one or more of a delay is greater than a delay threshold, a delay jitter is greater than a delay jitter threshold, an access success rate is less than an access success rate threshold, a call drop rate is greater than a call drop rate threshold, a packet loss rate is greater than a packet loss rate threshold, or a mean opinion score is less than a mean opinion score threshold, wherein the mean opinion score describes voice or video quality;
wherein the determining the mobility includes determining one or more of a handover success rate is less than a handover success rate threshold, a premature handover rate is greater than a premature handover rate threshold, a delayed handover rate is greater than a delayed handover rate threshold, or a ping-pong handover rate is greater than a ping-pong handover rate threshold; and
wherein the determining the energy consumption includes determining one or more of the energy consumption is greater than an energy consumption threshold, or a traffic volume is lower than a traffic volume threshold, but the energy consumption is greater than the energy consumption threshold (Yao: [0101-0102, 0080]).
5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the determining the diagnosis information of the network issue includes determining one or more of a cause of the network issue, a recovery capability corresponding to the network issue, a recovery suggestion for the network issue, or a predicted recovery result of the network issue; wherein the determining the recovery capability includes determining the first apparatus is able to recover the network issue or the first apparatus is not able to recover the network issue; wherein the determining the recovery suggestion for the network issue includes determining an operation of the first apparatus to recover the network issue; and wherein the determining the predicted recovery result of the network issue includes determining a predicted network performance indicator obtained after the network issue is recovered (Yao: [0064-0070, 0102-0106]).
Regarding claims 6, 10-12, 15-17, 20, the independent claim and each dependent claim are related to the same limitation set for hereinabove in claims 1, 5, where the difference used is a “apparatus” with a processor and a memory (Yao: Referring to FIG. 2, the device includes a processor, a memory [0054-0055]) 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 arid interchanging the wording did not introduce new limitations to these claims. Therefore, these claims were rejected for similar reasons as stated above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 1/2/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant Argument:
The office action has failed to identify where all elements of claim(s) 1, 11, 16 are described by the applied reference.
Response to Arguments:
With respect to the above argument, Examiner would like to draw attention to that it is the claims that define the claimed invention, and it is claims, not specifications that are anticipated or unpatentable. Constant v. Advanced Micro-Devices Inc., 7 USPQ2d 1064.
In addition, the Examiner would like to draw attention that Applicant should submit an argument pointing out disagreements with the examiner’s contentions. Applicant must also discuss the references applied against the claims, explaining how the claims avoid the references or distinguish from them. So, meanwhile there is no specific argument other than “the office action has failed to identify where all elements of claim(s) are described by the applied reference.” The Examiner refers the Applicant kindly to see the rejection(s) as stated above.
Thus, for the above reason, the prior art(s) meet the claim limitation.
The examiner stresses that the claims are too broad and require detail or specialization of the steps as recited in the claims. Alone and as claimed, the limitations are too open.
Examiner has cited particular portions of the references as applied to each claim limitation for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Regarding all other arguments presented by applicant, the arguments are substantially the same as those which have already been addressed above and in the interest of brevity; the Examiner directs the applicant to those responses above.
Remark:
In addition, an interview could expedite the prosecution.
Conclusion
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Sulaiman Nooristany whose telephone number is 571-270-1929. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday thru Friday: 8:30am to 5:00pm (EST). If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeff Rutkowski can be reached on 571-270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/SULAIMAN NOORISTANY/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415