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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 09 September 2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 21, 26 and 31 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection.
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 21, 23, 26, 28, 31 and 33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xin et al Pub. No.: (US 2025/0267076 A1) (hereinafter “Xin”) in view of Savic et al Pub. No.: (US 2019/0325302 A1) (hereinafter "Savic”).
With respect to claim 21: Xin discloses a method applied in a mobile communication system, wherein the method comprises:
receiving, by an aggregation node, calculation results of at least two second nodes in the mobile communication system, wherein the at least two second nodes are nodes with local data in the mobile communication system, each second node is locally deployed with one sub-model in a model, and the calculation result is obtained by calculating the local data of each second node using the sub-model in the second node (the first data analytics network elements receives sub-models from one or more third data analytic network elements and/or second data analytics network elements, the sub-models are aggregated to obtain an updated model [0286-0289], [0384-0386], [Fig. 7A and Fig. 7B]. Additionally, the server node may aggregate a sub-models of the client nodes, the client reports a quantity of samples and a local gradient value [0181-0184], [0188-0192], [0384-0386], [Fig. 3], [Fig. 11]);
wherein the aggregation calculation result is obtained by aggregating the calculation results of the at least two second nodes (the sub-models are aggregated to obtain an updated model [0286-0289], [Fig. 7Aand Fig. 7B], [0385]);
sending, by the aggregation node, an aggregation calculation result to the node in the mobile communication system (the first data analytics network element sends the updated model to the one or more third data analytics network elements [0290]),
However, Xin does not explicitly disclose sending, by the aggregation node, an aggregation calculation result to a first node in the mobile communication system, wherein the first node is a master node and the at least two second nodes are participating nodes;
Savic discloses sending, by the aggregation node, an aggregation calculation result to a first node in the communication system, wherein the first node is a master node and the at least two second nodes are participating nodes (the local parameter server node 440 operating as a master PS receives an aggregated result from the parameter server node of the remote host node, the parameter server node on the remote host node aggregates the processing results of all the worker nodes on the remote host node and transmits to the master PS [0057-0060]. Therefore, the parameter server node of the remote host node act as an aggregator which aggregates the results from all the remote worker nodes and transmits the aggregation calculation results to the master PS. Additionally, in another scenario, the local parameter node 440 could also act at an aggregator by aggregating the results of the local worker nodes along with results of remote worker nodes and generating a global result, which is then transmitted to a remote master PS on the remote nodes).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xin in view of Savic in order to send, by the aggregation node, an aggregation calculation result to a first node, wherein the first node is a master node and the at least two second nodes are participating nodes;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would provide increased communication efficiency (e.g., latency and bandwidth) [Savic: 0069].
With respect to claim 23: Xin-Savic discloses the method according to claim 21 as set forth above.
Xin discloses wherein the aggregation calculation result is used by the first node to calculate an inference result (the data analytics network element can perform distributed learning based training of inference [0172], [0195], [0389-0392]).
With respect to claims 26 and 28, they do not teach or further define over the limitations in claims 21 and 23, respectively. Therefore claims 26 and 28 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claims 21 and 23.
With respect to claims 31 and 33, they do not teach or further define over the limitations in claims 21 and 23, respectively. Therefore claims 31 and 33 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claims 21 and 23.
Claims 22, 24, 27, 29, 32 and 34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xin et al Pub. No.: (US 2025/0267076 A1) (hereinafter “Xin”) in view of Savic et al Pub. No.: (US 2019/0325302 A1) (hereinafter "Savic”) as applied to claims 21, 23, 26, 28, 31 and 33 above, further in view of Shi et al Pub. No.: (US 2021/0392553 A1) (hereinafter "Shi”) and Zhu et al Pub. No.: (US 2023/0345243 A1) (hereinafter "Zhu”).
With respect to claim 22: Xin-Savic discloses the method according to claim 21 as set forth above, wherein:
Xin discloses the second node is at least one of a core network element or an application server (obtaining data from the core network element [0277]);
However, Xin-Savic does not explicitly disclose the aggregation node is a core network element;
the first node is a core network element;
wherein types of the first node and the second node are different;
Shi discloses the first node is a core network element (first core network element [0007-0010]);
wherein types of the first node and the second node are different (the first core network element and the second core network element may be core network elements of different standards/types [0050]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xin-Savic in view of Shi in order to have the first type and the second type are different;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would provide different type of communication such as a 4G core network and a 5G core network [Shi: 0050];
However, Xin-Savic-Shi does not explicitly disclose the aggregation node is a core network element;
Zhu discloses the aggregation node is a core network element (the aggregation network element may be an independent core network element [0019], [0038], [0043], [0085], [0233]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xin-Savic-Shi in view of Zhu in order to have the aggregation node is a core network element;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would improve application service quality [Zhu: 0145].
With respect to claim 24: Xin-Savic-Shi-Zhu discloses the method according to claim 22 as set forth above.
Xin discloses the aggregation node and the first node (second network elements/third elements and first network element (aggregation node) [Fig. 7A and Fig. 7B]);
However, Xin-Savic does not explicitly disclose wherein the aggregation node and the first node are different types of core network elements;
Shi discloses wherein the aggregation node and the first node are different types of core network elements (the first core network element and the second core network element may be core network elements of different standards/types [0050]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xin-Savic in view of Shi in order to have the aggregation node and the first node are different types of core network elements;
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would provide different type of communication such as a 4G core network and a 5G core network [Shi: 0050].
With respect to claims 27 and 29, they do not teach or further define over the limitations in claims 22 and 24, respectively. Therefore claims 27 and 29 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claims 22 and 24.
With respect to claims 32 and 34, they do not teach or further define over the limitations in claims 22 and 24, respectively. Therefore claims 32 and 34 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claims 22 and 24.
Claims 25, 30 and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xin et al Pub. No.: (US 2025/0267076 A1) (hereinafter “Xin”) in view of Savic et al Pub. No.: (US 2019/0325302 A1) (hereinafter "Savic”) as applied to claims 21, 23, 26, 28, 31 and 33 above, further in view of Cao et al Pub. No.: (US 2023/0344717 A1) (hereinafter "Cao”).
With respect to claim 25: Xin-Savic discloses the method according to claim 21 as set forth above.
However, Xin-Savic does not explicitly disclose wherein a core network element is a network data analytics function (NWDAF);
Cao wherein a core network element is a network data analytics function (NWDAF) (the core network element is a NWDAF [0253], [0326]);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Xin-Savic in view of Cao in order to have a core network element is a network data analytics function (NWDAF);
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because it would permit the core network element which act as the NWDAF to analyze the core network data [Cao: 0050].
With respect to claim 30, they do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 25, respectively. Therefore claim 30 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claim 25.
With respect to claim 35, they do not teach or further define over the limitations in claim 25, respectively. Therefore claim 35 is rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claim 25..
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THAO DUC DUONG whose telephone number is (571)272-2350. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9-5.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Moo Jeong can be reached on (571)272-9617. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/T. D./
Examiner, Art Unit 2418
/MICHAEL A KELLER/Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2418
