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 .
Authorization for Internet Communication
In the interest of compact prosecution, the Examiner recommends filing a written authorization for Internet communication. Doing so would permit the USPTO to communicate using Internet e-mail to schedule interviews or discuss other aspects of the application. Without a written authorization in place, the USPTO cannot respond to Internet e-mail correspondence. The preferred method of providing authorization is by filing form PTO/SB/439, available at: https://www.uspto.gov/patent/forms/forms. See MPEP § 502.03. Authorizations in an Internet e-mail do not have the same effect as filing the form in the record.
Information Disclosure Statement
Applicant is respectfully reminded of the duty under 37 C.F.R. 1.56 to disclose all pertinent information and material pertaining to the patentability of the instant invention, by submitting in a timely manner PTO-1449, Information Disclosure Statement (IDS), with the filing of an application or thereafter.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 follows.
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Claims 1, 11, and 14 recite identifying performance indicators, generating a package with objects, injecting the package, and processing incoming performance indicator data to create and persistently store performance indicator records. These recitations cover performance of the limitations in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. Receiving data is extra solution activity. Other than reciting a system, processors, a network element, a communication network, a compiler, a normalizer, a message bus, and a medium, nothing in the claims precludes the steps from practically being performed in the mind, e.g., utilizing mathematics.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims recite the aforementioned elements at a high-level of generality, amounting to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. The claims add ingest the performance indicator data, receiving incoming performance indicator data, and store the performance indicator records. Data gathering and outputting required to use the abstract idea does not add a meaningful limitation because it is insignificant, extra-solution activity.
Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are directed towards an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As aforementioned regarding the failure to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. Therefore, the claims are patent ineligible.
The dependent claims merely set forth additional details of the abstract idea and also fail to recite additional elements sufficient to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or amounting to significantly more than the judicial exception. Therefore, claims 1-20 are not patent eligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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 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.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 7, 10, 11, 16, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO-2025017649 (Bhatnagar) in view of US 9390418 (Gavan) further in view of GB 2403829 (Wei), US 12281900 (Schmitt), and WO-2025046609 (Murarka).
Regarding claim 11, Bhatnagar teaches or suggests a system (title), comprising:
one or more processors configured for executing instructions to perform operations (¶ 48) comprising:
identifying performance indicators to track for a communication network (¶ 109);
a normalizer to process performance indicator data from the network to generate performance indicator records (¶¶ 67, 109);
receiving, by the normalizer over a message bus from the network element, incoming performance indicator data (¶ 70).
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Gavan teaches or suggests generating, by a compiler, a package with compiler objects specifying how a normalizer is to process performance indicator data from the network to generate performance indicator records; and injecting the package into the normalizer for utilizing the compiler objects to ingest the performance indicator data (14:58-64). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system and Gavan’s reconfiguration in order to adapt the normalizer to the requirements of an enterprise.
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Wei teaches or suggests the injecting occurs during runtime of a normalizer, (description of Figs. 3 and 4). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system, Gavan’s reconfiguration, and Wei’s timing in order to avoid a system shut down.
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Schmitt teaches or suggests a first compiler object of compiler objects is mapped to a first type of performance indicator data to be processed by the first compiler object, and a second compiler object of the compiler objects is mapped to a second type of performance indicator data to be processed by the second compiler object; (7:34-41). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system, Gavan’s reconfiguration, Wei’s timing, and Schmitt’s objects in order to a normalize different formats.
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Murarka teaches or suggests tracking a network element (¶ 84) and processing, utilizing the compiler objects, the incoming performance indicator data to create and persistently store the performance indicator records the performance indicator records (¶ 105).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system, Gavan’s reconfiguration, Wei’s timing, Schmitt’s objects, and Murarka’s processing in order to prevent loss of the records.
Regarding claims 1 and 18, the aforementioned combination teaches or suggests the claimed limitations as explained regarding claim 11 supra, mutatis mutandis, as well as a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions (¶ 149).
Regarding claim 2, Bhatnagar teaches or suggests utilizing a rule to combine a set of data items from the network element to create a single performance indicator (¶ 3).
Regarding claim 4, Bhatnagar teaches or suggests aggregating the performance indicator records over an aggregation window to create aggregated performance indicator sets; in response to receiving a request for analyzing the communication network, selecting an aggregated performance indicator set corresponding to a level of granularity related to the request; and providing the aggregated performance indicator set as a response to the request (¶ 88).
Regarding claim 7, Murarka teaches or suggests receiving a troubleshooting request for the communication network; selecting a level of granularity of performance indicator data to analyze for the troubleshooting request; selecting an aggregated performance indicator set corresponding to the level of granularity; analyzing the aggregated performance indicator set to generate a corrective action to perform for the troubleshooting request; and implementing the corrective action (¶ 128). A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claim 11.
Regarding claim 10, Bhatnagar teaches or suggests transforming, by the normalizer, the incoming performance indicator data utilizing rules provided by the compiler to the normalizer (¶ 67).
Regarding claim 16, Murarka teaches or suggests aggregating performance indicator records over a second aggregation window to create a second aggregated performance indicator set; and utilizing the second aggregated performance indicator set to evaluate text messaging performance (¶ 108). A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claim 11.
Claims 3, 6, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO-2025017649 (Bhatnagar) in view of US 9390418 (Gavan) further in view of GB 2403829 (Wei), US 12281900 (Schmitt), WO-2025046609 (Murarka), and WO-2025009172 (Echigo).
Regarding claims 3 and 20, Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Echigo teaches or suggests dynamically modifying the performance indicators to track by removing or adding a performance indicator during operation of the normalizer (two ¶¶s before Analysis). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system, Gavan’s reconfiguration, Wei’s timing, Schmitt’s objects, Murarka’s processing, and Echigo’s modifying in order to provide flexibility.
Regarding claim 6, Bhatnagar teaches or suggests injecting the package into the normalizer to start tracking the performance indicator as aforementioned.
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Echigo teaches or suggests in response to determining that a performance indicator is to be tracked, generating an updated package with updated compiler objects (two ¶¶s before Analysis). A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claim 3.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO-2025017649 (Bhatnagar) in view of US 9390418 (Gavan) further in view of GB 2403829 (Wei), US 12281900 (Schmitt), WO-2025046609 (Murarka), and US-20230259443-A1 (Gusat).
Bhatnagar teaches or suggests injecting the package into the normalizer as aforementioned.
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Gusat teaches or suggests in response to determining that a performance indicator is no longer to be tracked, generating an updated package with updated compiler objects (¶ 59). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system, Gavan’s reconfiguration, Wei’s timing, Schmitt’s objects, Murarka’s processing, and Gusat’s generating in order to provide flexibility.
Claims 8, 14, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO-2025017649 (Bhatnagar) in view of US 9390418 (Gavan) further in view of GB 2403829 (Wei), US 12281900 (Schmitt), WO-2025046609 (Murarka), and BR-112017016306 (Cortes).
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Cortes teaches or suggests dynamically configuring, by the compiler during operation of a platform that includes the compiler and the normalizer, the normalizer to track a set of performance indicators for a new network element (cl. 4).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system, Gavan’s reconfiguration, Wei’s timing, Schmitt’s objects, Murarka’s processing, and Cortes’ configuring in order to provide flexibility.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO-2025017649 (Bhatnagar) in view of US 9390418 (Gavan) further in view of GB 2403829 (Wei), US 12281900 (Schmitt), WO-2025046609 (Murarka), and CN-110751485 (Li).
Bhatnagar teaches or suggests aggregating the performance indicator records over an aggregation window to create an aggregated performance indicator set (¶ 88).
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Li teaches or suggests in response to receiving performance data within a threshold time after creation of the aggregated performance indicator set, adding the performance data into the aggregated performance indicator set (claim 1).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system, Gavan’s reconfiguration, Wei’s timing, Schmitt’s objects, Murarka’s processing, and Li’s adding in order to provide flexibility.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO-2025017649 (Bhatnagar) in view of US 9390418 (Gavan) further in view of GB 2403829 (Wei), US 12281900 (Schmitt), WO-2025046609 (Murarka), and US-20230209105 (Kozak).
Bhatnagar teaches or suggests and publish the incoming performance indicator data over the message bus (¶ 70).
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Kozak teaches or suggests performing a file pull operation to retrieve incoming performance indicator data from the network element (¶ 46).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system, Gavan’s reconfiguration, Wei’s timing, Schmitt’s objects, Murarka’s processing, and Kozak’s file pull in order to obtain data.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO-2025017649 (Bhatnagar) in view of US 9390418 (Gavan) further in view of GB 2403829 (Wei), US 12281900 (Schmitt), WO-2025046609 (Murarka), and WO-2024110160 (Ali).
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Ali teaches or suggests processing the performance indicator records to track at least one of download speeds, upload speeds, voice connections, text messaging, user equipment performance, cell tower performance, or network equipment performance (abs.).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system, Gavan’s reconfiguration, Wei’s timing, Schmitt’s objects, Murarka’s processing, and Ali’s metric in order to learn relevant information.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO-2025017649 (Bhatnagar) in view of US 9390418 (Gavan) further in view of GB 2403829 (Wei), US 12281900 (Schmitt), WO-2025046609 (Murarka), and US-20180212819 (Zhang).
Murarka teaches or suggests aggregating performance indicator records over a first aggregation window to create a first aggregated performance indicator set (¶ 128). A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claim 11.
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Zhang teaches or suggests utilizing the second aggregated performance indicator set to evaluate voicemail access performance (claim 1).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system, Gavan’s reconfiguration, Wei’s timing, Schmitt’s objects, Murarka’s processing, and Zhang’s utilizing in order to in order to learn relevant information.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WO-2025017649 (Bhatnagar) in view of US 9390418 (Gavan) further in view of GB 2403829 (Wei), US 12281900 (Schmitt), WO-2025046609 (Murarka), FR-2997250 (Kovesi).
Murarka teaches or suggests aggregating performance indicator records over a first aggregation window to create a second aggregated performance indicator set (¶ 128). A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claim 11.
Bhatnagar does not expressly disclose but Kovesi teaches or suggests utilizing the second aggregated performance indicator set to evaluate voicemail access performance (description following fig. 1).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Bhatnagar’s system, Gavan’s reconfiguration, Wei’s timing, Schmitt’s objects, Murarka’s processing, and Kovesi’s utilizing in order to in order to learn relevant information.
Response to Arguments
The arguments have been fully considered. The applicant argues that “Independent claims 1, 11 and/or 18 are amended based upon the proposed claim amendments and/or the feedback of the Examiner and are therefore believed to overcome the rejection.” (Resp. 12.) Upon rereading the specification and based on the new added references, the Examiner believes the preceding rejections are warranted.
Other Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to the instant disclosure. For example, US-20190095241 executes multiple containerized instances of a software application (abs).
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 Lance Leonard Barry whose telephone number is (571)272-5856. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 700-430 ET 730-1630.
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/LANCE LEONARD BARRY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457
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