DETAILED ACTION
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 § 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, 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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 5, 8-12, 14, and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mwanje et al. (US 2020/0187113) in view of Zhang et al. (US 2021/0029653).
Referring to Claim 1, Mwanje teaches an apparatus, comprising:
at least one processor (paragraph 93);
at least one non-transitory memory storing instruction that (paragraph 93), when executed with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to:
determine, a search region for determining a pair of thresholds comprising a minimum threshold and a maximum threshold, wherein the pair of thresholds is for a group of cells provided with an access node, and the minimum threshold value is for deactivating at least one cell of the group of cells and the maximum value is for activating at least one cell of the group of cells (see paragraph 50 which shows the determination of an upper and lower load threshold for all active cells within an access node and paragraph 61 which shows the load less than the lower threshold which causes deactivation of the cell);
define the search region to have a starting point in which the pair of thresholds has values corresponding to the cells comprised in the group of cells being activated during a deployment period, regardless of a status of a network, and the values increase in the search region (see paragraph 37 which shows values increasing as traffic increases and paragraph 137 which shows the thresholds adjusting according to network operations);
retrieve at least one key performance indicator, associated with the group of cells, collected during latest deployment period (see paragraph 137 which shows experience from the operation of the network as performance indicators);
retrieve a value of the minimum threshold and a value of the maximum threshold applied during the latest deployment period and convert the retrieved values (see paragraph 137 which shows the threshold values retrieved and adjusted).
Mwanje does not teach initiating a Bayseian model, converting retrieved values for the Bayesian model; and updating the Bayesian model based on the at least one key performance indicator and the retrieved and converted values. Zhang teaches initiating a Bayseian model, converting retrieved values for the Bayesian model; and updating the Bayesian model based on the at least one key performance indicator and the retrieved and converted values (see paragraphs 25 and 28 which shows the determination of minimum and maximum power thresholds and paragraph 36 which shows the use of Bayesian formulas in determination of network values). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Zhang to the device of Mwanje in order to more efficiently regulate power consumption.
Claims 11 and 15 have similar limitations as claim 1.
Referring to Claims 2 and 12, Zhang also teaches initiating the Bayesian model with defining a parametrized function, for which values of pairs of thresholds within the search region are provided as input, and with setting an initial prior distribution of parameters of the parameterized function (see paragraph 53 which shows transmission metrics as input to determining thresholds in order to dynamically change the thresholds which implies that previous thresholds are also transmission metrics).
Refering to Claims 5 and 14, Mwanje also teaches determining if power saving was used during the latest deployment period, the power saving comprising activating or deactivating at least one cell of the group of cells; and if power saving was used, the retrieved values are values deployed during the latest deployment period (see paragraph 193 which shows cells in the power saving group having a weight larger than 0); and if power saving was not used, the retrieved values are defined to be zero (see paragraph 51 which shows default values to be 0).
Referring to Claim 8, Mwanje also teaches the at least one key performance indicator comprising a combination of at least two key performance indicators (see paragraph 34 which shows load and traffic as performance indicators).
Referring to Claim 9, Mwanje also teaches the pair of thresholds as thresholds regarding traffic load in one or more cells provided with the access node (see paragraph 57 which shows the min and max thresholds regarding all cells in the group).
Referring to Claim 10, Mwanje also teaches the apparatus is in the access node or a computing node (see paragraph 127 which shows the apparatus as part of a cell among neighboring cells).
Claim(s) 3 and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mwanje and Zhang and further in view of Nay et al. (US 12,279,880).
Referring to Claims 3 and 13, the combination of Mwanje and Zhang does not teach providing, for the pair of thresholds, values in which the value for the maximum threshold is double of the value of the minimum threshold. Nay teaches providing, for the pair of thresholds, values in which the value for the maximum threshold is double of the value of the minimum threshold (see col. 16, lines 27-32 which shows the min threshold half the max threshold which is the same as the max threshold double the min threshold). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Nay to the modified device of Mwanje and Zhang in order to more efficiently regulate power consumption by providing a bigger range of power levels to operate.
Claim(s) 4 and 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mwanje and Zhang and further in view of Lee et al. (US 6,529,520)
Referring to Claims 4 and 13, the combination of Mwanje and Zhang does not teach providing values based on the parameterized function, that is a piece-wise linear function bounded between values zero and one. Lee teaches providing values based on the parameterized function, that is a piece-wise linear function bounded between values zero and one (see col. 14, lines 23-33 which shows piece wise linear function for establishing lower bound and upper bound thresholds). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide the teachings of Lee to the modified device of Mwanje and Zhang in order to more better mitigate delay during operation of the device.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6 and 7 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Regarding Claim 6, Mwanje, Zhang, Nay, and Lee do not teach a prior of the Bayesian model set to a normal variable with zero mean, diagonal covariance matrix, and fixed variance.
Claim 7 depends on claim 6.
Conclusion
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/EUGENE YUN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2648