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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement submitted on 5/26/25 has been considered by the examiner (see attached PTO-1449 form).
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed. The examiner suggests the following title “A method of collecting and reporting training-related data for wireless/AI use cases”.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)–(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Subcombination II, claims 1, 4, 5, and 19- 20, in the reply filed on 7/16/2026 is acknowledged.
CLAIM INTERPRETATION
Claim 1 recites a contingent limitation of
“performing, by a terminal, a first operation in a case that a first condition is met, wherein the first condition comprises at least one of the following:
..a first preset condition;
… a second preset condition;
Or… a seventh preset condition….”
The phrase “in case” indicates that “the performing of the first operation” occurs only when one of “the first condition” is met. However, the present claims never affirmatively require such events to occur. The broadest reasonable interpretation of these limitations does not require these conditional steps to be performed. See Ex parte Schulhauser, 2013-007847 (PTAB 2016) (precedential) where the board held that when method steps are to be carried out only upon the occurrence of a condition precedent, the broadest reasonable interpretation holds that those steps are not required to be performed.
As such, the whole limitation followed by "performing by a terminal, a first operation …the first operation comprises one or more of the following: .. and reporting compressed second information" do not appear to have patentable weight since they are contingent upon a condition occurring.
Examiner suggests positively reciting one of criteria is met. For example:
“determining that a first condition is met;
in response to the determining that the first condition is met, performing, by a terminal, the first operation.”
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as 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, 4, 5 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Regarding independent claims 1, 19 and 20, the claims recite:
“performing, by a terminal, a first operation….
the first operation comprises one or more of the following:
collecting statistics to obtain first information;
generating a first report;
reporting second information; and
compressing the second information in a preset compression manner, and
reporting compressed second information.”
The examiner notes that the independent claims do recite a patent eligible limitation of “compressing the second information” since compressing the second information cannot be performed in the mind. However, due to the alternative language of “one or more”, this “compressing” step is optional. Thus, in the case where the “compressing” step is not performed and the other non-patentable eligible steps is/are performed, then the claim would be rejected for the following reasons.
Step 1 Analysis: Is the claim to a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter? See MPEP § 2106.03.
For claims 1, 19 and 20, the claims are to a process, machine and manufacture respectively.
Step 2A Prong One Analysis: Does the claim recite an abstract idea, law of nature, or natural phenomenon? See MPEP § 2106.04(II)(A)(1).
Yes, the limitations of performing one of a first operation of: a) collecting, b) generating a first report; c) reporting second information, as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. That is, other than reciting “by a terminal”, nothing in the claim element precludes the step from practically being performed in the mind. For example, but for the “terminal” language, “collecting statistics” in the context of this claim encompasses the user recording/writing down numbers. “Generating a first report” in the context of this claim encompasses the user writing out a summary of the collected data” and “reporting second information” in the context of this claim encompasses the user reading out loud the summary.
If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong Two Analysis: Does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application? See MPEP § 2106.04(d).
No, this judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim only recites one additional element – using a processor of a terminal to perform a first operation. The processor in all the steps is recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function to perform a first operation) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B Analysis: Does the claim recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception? See MPEP § 2106.05.
No, the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of using a processor of a terminal to perform the first operation amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component.
The claim recites additional elements “performing by a terminal”. Paragraph [0060] of applicant’s specification states “The terminal 11 may also be referred to as a terminal device or user equipment (UE). The terminal 11 may be a terminal side device such as a mobile phone, a tablet personal computer, a laptop computer or referred to as a notebook computer..” As such, by applicant’s admission, the additional element, a terminal is a generic well-understood device (i.e. mobile phone).
Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The claim is not patent eligible.
Claim 4, similar to independent Claim 1, recites a “wherein clause” of “wherein the first measurement quantity comprises at least one of the following:…”. The “wherein clause” of this claim is a continuation of the abstract idea of the parent claim 1. The claim only recites an additional element, that generally links the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use, but does not recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application See MPEP § 2106.05(h). Furthermore, the claim recites the wherein clause of an additional element that amounts to adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception and does not recite additional elements that amount to significantly more to the abstract idea. See MPEP §§ 2106.04(d), 2106.05(g). Therefore, the claim is ineligible.
Claim 5, similar to independent Claim 1, recites a “wherein clause” of “wherein the second preset condition comprises at least one of the following:…” The “wherein clause” of this claim is a continuation of the abstract idea of the parent claim 1. The claim only recites an additional element, that generally links the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use, but does not recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application See MPEP § 2106.05(h). Furthermore, the claim recites the wherein clause of an additional element that amounts to adding insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception and does not recite additional elements that amount to significantly more to the abstract idea. See MPEP §§ 2106.04(d), 2106.05(g). Therefore, the claim is ineligible.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4-5 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over in view of Tullberg (US 20220051139) in view of Ramachandra (WO-2020242368A1)
Regarding claim 1, 19 and 20, Tullberg teaches an information processing method, comprising:
performing, by a terminal, a first operation in a case that a first condition is met, wherein the first condition comprises at least one of the following:
([0092] “the wireless device 120 may be triggered to collect the number of successive data samples by a communications event.”)
a location in which the terminal is located meets a first preset condition;
a first measurement quantity meets a second preset condition;
a first event meets a third preset condition;
a first identifier meets a fourth preset condition;
a first transmission parameter meets a fifth preset condition;
application layer configuration information meets a sixth preset condition; or
a first configuration meets a seventh preset condition
(“[0092] “the wireless device 120 may be triggered to collect the number of successive data samples by a communications event. For example, the wireless device 120 may be triggered to collect the data samples when a transmission was not transmitted or received as expected.”); and
the first operation comprises one or more of the following:
collecting statistics to obtain first information (Action 201 [0089] “The wireless device 120 collects a number of successive data samples for training of the machine learning model comprised in the network node 110. The data samples may for example be sensor readings, such as temperature reading, or communication parameters, such as parameters of a communication link between the wireless device 120 and the network node 110. Some examples of such parameters are load, signal strength, signal quality, just to give some example”);
compressing the second information in a preset compression manner ([0095] “The wireless device 120 successively creates compressed data. As will be described in Action 204 below, the wireless device 120 is to transmit the collected data samples to another node, e.g. the network node 110, for centralized training of the machine learning model and in order to reduce the amount of data to be transmitted, the wireless device 120 creates the compressed data”), and
reporting compressed second information ([0110] The wireless device 120 transmits, to the network node 110, the compressed data comprising the cluster centroid, the cluster counter, and the number of outlier collected data samples, which compressed data is to be used in the training of the machine learning model. Thereby, the compressed data is available for the network node 110 as training data for training of the machine learning model. [0111] the wireless device 120 transmits the compressed data to the network node 110 by transmitting the compressed data to the network node 110 when a load on a communications link between the wireless device 120 and the network node 110 is below a load threshold value.)
Tullberg’s implicitly teaches generating a first report; reporting second information (since the claim does not define what format the report is, the generation of the compressed data can be interpreted to be the generation of the report). However, for compact prosecution purpose, Ramachandra is added to show the explicit teaching.
In an analogous art, Ramachandra explicitly teaches generation of a first report; reporting second information (Fig. 4 step 404, Measurement report is sent to the network node 103 When the measurement reporting event is satisfied, the UE 102 sends a measurement report to the serving cell.) Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Tullberg's teaching of transmitting the compressed data in the form of a report as taught by Ramachandra because its reports can organize complex data and provide insights, and recommendations into a logical format, making it easier for readers to understand key points.
With further regard to claim 19, Tullberg further teaches a terminal, comprising a processor ([0122] Fig. 3 processor 308), a memory ([0122] Fig. 3 memory 307), and a program or instructions stored in the memory and executable on the processor.
With further regard to claim 20, Tullberg teaches a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium ([0122] Fig. 3 memory 307) comprising computer executable instructions for implementing method in claim 1 and is rejected along the same rational.
Regarding claim 4, Tullberg and Ramachandra teach the method according to claim 1, wherein Ramachandra further teaches the first measurement quantity comprises at least one of the following:
a signal value or a statistical value of a signal value obtained at a reception reference point, wherein the signal value or the statistical value comprises a channel estimate value obtained on a resource element (RE);
a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR);
reference signal received power (RSRP) (Ramachandra, Page 14 Lines 12-17, “Action 401: Check if measurement logging event condition is fulfilled. The UE 102 fulfils the inequality condition ML1-1 provided in the previous sub section. This condition may be based on RSRP or RSRQ or SINR or a combination of these measurements. This condition may also be based on the Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) or CSI-RS or a combination of these reference signal types.”);
a signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR);
reference signal received quality (RSRQ);
a packet delay; a round-trip time (RTT);
an observed time difference of arrival (OTDOA);
a measurement result corresponding to channel state information (CSI);
a measurement result used for radio resource management (RRM) measurement;
a measurement result used for beam failure detection (BFD) measurement;
a measurement result for radio link failure (RLF) measurement; quality of experience (QoE) measurement information, wherein the QoE measurement information comprises at least one of a packet loss rate, service delay information, and a throughput;
or image information or image perception information, wherein the image information or the image perception information comprises at least one of information obtained by a camera or information obtained by a sensor;
wherein a measurement result corresponding to the first measurement quantity is obtained based on a single measurement, or a measurement result corresponding to the first measurement quantity is obtained based on a plurality of measurements;
wherein a measurement resource corresponding to the first measurement quantity is preconfigured or pre-agreed (Ramachandra, Page 4 Lines 3-5, “the UE can be configured with periodical reporting configurations and/or event triggered reporting configurations (A1-A6 and B1-B2)”);
and the measurement resource corresponding to the first measurement quantity comprises at least one of the following: a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) demodulation reference signal (DMRS);
a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) DMRS;
a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS);
a synchronization signal/physical broadcast channel signal block (SSB);
a reference signal used for BFD; a reference signal used for RRM;
a reference signal used for RLF;
an identifier corresponding to a reference signal used for BFD;
an identifier corresponding to a reference signal used for RRM; or
an identifier corresponding to a reference signal used for RLF;
wherein the radio resource management (RRM) measurement comprises: serving cell measurement (Ramachandra Page 14 Lines 19-24; “Action 402: UE 102 performs logging of the measurements. The UE 102 may be configured with what measurements to be reported. This may be provided via reportAddNeighMeas , reportQuantityCell and reportQuantityRS-lndexes or some new parameters in the reportConfig. An example of the new parameters could be associated whether the UE is expected to log the serving cell measurements or not. Other examples include timing advance measurements, location information”);
neighboring cell measurement (Ramachandra Page 8 Lines 6-10 “An RRC_CONNECTED UE in E-UTRAN or NG-RAN can be configured by the network to perform measurements of serving and neighbor cells and based on the measurement reports sent by the UE, the network may decide to perform a handover of the UE to a neighbor cell”);
camped cell (serving cell) measurement (Ramachandra Page 14 Lines 19-24; “Action 402: UE 102 performs logging of the measurements. The UE 102 may be configured with what measurements to be reported. This may be provided via reportAddNeighMeas , reportQuantityCell and reportQuantityRS-lndexes or some new parameters in the reportConfig. An example of the new parameters could be associated whether the UE is expected to log the serving cell measurements or not. Other examples include timing advance measurements, location information etc.” Note: a serving cell is a cell the UE is currently camped on. Therefore, the serving cell is a camped cell.); and
non-camped cell (neighbor cells) measurement (Ramachandra Page 8 Lines 6-10 “An RRC_CONNECTED UE in E-UTRAN or NG-RAN can be configured by the network to perform measurements of serving and neighbor cells and based on the measurement reports sent by the UE, the network may decide to perform a handover of the UE to a neighbor cell” Note: a neighbor cell is a cell the UE is not currently camped on. Therefore, the neighbor cell is a non-camped cell”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Tullberg's teaching of collecting/logging measurement to include Ramachandra's teaching of using RSRP measurement because RSRP values are comparable across different devices, operators, and network types, making it ideal for logging and benchmarking.
Regarding claim 5, Tullberg and Ramachandra teach the method according to claim 1, wherein the second preset condition comprises at least one of the following:
an SNR or a specific representation of an SNR conforms to a preconfigured range;
RSRP or a specific representation of RSRP conforms to a preconfigured range (Ramachandra, Page 14 Lines 12-17, “Action 401: Check if measurement logging event condition is fulfilled. The UE 102 fulfils the inequality condition ML1-1 provided in the previous sub section. This condition may be based on RSRP or RSRQ or SINR or a combination of these measurements. This condition may also be based on the Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) or CSI-RS or a combination of these reference signal types.”);
an SINR or a specific representation of an SINR conforms to a preconfigured range
RSRQ or a specific representation of RSRQ conforms to a preconfigured range; a packet delay or a specific representation of a packet delay conforms to a preconfigured range;
an RTT or a specific representation of an RTT conforms to a preconfigured range;
an OTDOA or a specific representation of an OTDOA conforms to a preconfigured range;
a measurement result corresponding to CSI or a specific representation of a measurement result corresponding to CSI conforms to a preconfigured first measurement range;
a measurement result of RRM measurement or a specific representation of a measurement result used for RRM measurement conforms to a preconfigured range;
a measurement result of BFD measurement or a specific representation of a measurement result used for BFD measurement conforms to a preconfigured range;
a measurement result of RLF or a specific representation of a measurement result used for RLF conforms to a preconfigured range;
a measurement result corresponding to an RS or a specific representation of a measurement result corresponding to an RS conforms to a preconfigured second measurement range; or
a measurement result corresponding to QoE measurement information or a specific representation of a measurement result corresponding to QoE measurement information conforms to a preconfigured third measurement range.
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Tullberg's teaching of collecting/logging measurement to include Ramachandra's teaching of using RSRP measurement as the condition because RSRP values are comparable across different devices, operators, and network types, making it ideal for logging and benchmarking.
Citation of Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Vora (US 20200028946) teaches a device obtains sensor measurements from a set of sensors via an electronic interface of the device. The payload may contain data that is based on the sensor measurements obtained by the device, such as the reporting messages and/or event messages.
Gao (20220149908) teaches a method includes: A first device determines a first CSI report based on a compressed-type precoding matrix, where the first CSI report is a compressed-type CSI report, the first CSI report includes a CSI part 1 and a CSI part 2, the CSI part 1 is used to indicate a number of bits of the CSI part 2, the CSI part 2 is used to indicate wideband precoding matrix indicator PMI information ([0039]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUNG L LAM whose telephone number is (571)272-6497. The examiner can normally be reached Monday -Thursday 9-5pm.
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/DUNG L LAM/Examiner, Art Unit 2646
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