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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to application filed 04/28/2026.
Claims 1-20 are pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
The 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection presented on previous action is withdrawn in view of applicant’s amendments.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 6-8, 13-15, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsuo et al. (US 2011/0300867 A1) in view of Lei et al. (US 2019/0037417 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Matsuo discloses a method comprising:
receiving, by a configuration manager from a based station, updated data of one or more neighboring cells in a telecommunications network ([0013]: A wireless communication system of the present invention comprises a Mobility Management Entity which generates a white list in which CSG cells being accessible by a terminal device. [0049]: the MME 70 adds the cell ID of the user's desired CSG cell which is included in the white list update request, to the white list), wherein the updated data is provided by a user equipment (UE) to a base station (Matsuo, [0050]: when the UE 10 transmits a Measurement report message to the source HeNB 30, the UE 10 inserts a flag indicating that the white list is currently being updated (white list update flag) into the Measurement report message (S22). When receiving the Measurement report message, the source HeNB 30 transmits HO preparation including handover setting information to the HeNB gateway 50);
saving, by the configuration manager, the updated data into persistent storage (fig. 9, [0079]-[0080]: The MME 70 has an HeNB gateway communication interface (described as "HeNB gateway communication IF" ), a white list storing unit 72 which has stored the white list, and a control unit 73 which controls the MME 70. The control unit 73 has an NAS message transmitting/receiving unit 74, a white list updating unit 75. The NAS message transmitting/receiving unit 74 transmits and receives a white list update message and the updated white list as the NAS messages);
displaying, by the configuration manager, the updated data in a graphical user interface (GUI) ([0058]: The manual selection executing unit 16 displays neighboring CSG cells on a display to cause the user to select the desired CSG cell, and if the selected CSG cell is not in the white list, the manual selection executing unit 16 notifies the white list update request generating/transmitting unit 17 of nonexistence of the selected CSG cell in the white list. The white list update request generating/transmitting unit 17 generates the white list update request by including the cell ID of the CSG cell selected by the user into the Tracking Area Update message, and transmits the white list update request to the MME 70);
receiving, by the configuration manager, an instruction to change a configuration in the one or more neighboring cells ([0049]: the UE 10 transmits a Tracking Area Update message (this is referred to as "white list update request") including a cell ID of the CSG cell selected by the user. [0058]: The manual selection executing unit 16 displays neighboring CSG cells on a display to cause the user to select the desired CSG cell, and if the selected CSG cell is not in the white list, the manual selection executing unit 16 notifies the white list update request generating/transmitting unit 17 of nonexistence of the selected CSG cell in the white list. The white list update request generating/transmitting unit 17 generates the white list update request by including the cell ID of the CSG cell selected by the user into the Tracking Area Update message).
However, Matsuo does not disclose wherein the instruction to change the configuration is an instruction to change a value of a parameter of a neighboring cell included in a list of neighboring cells displayed by the GUI, the parameter being a handover allowed parameter.
In an analogous art, Lei discloses wherein the instruction to change the configuration is an instruction to change a value of a parameter of a neighboring cell included in a list of neighboring cells displayed by the GUI ([0056]: the neighbor relations table includes one column 306 to indicate whether a particular NR should be configured with a “no remove” status…another attribute includes another column 308 to indicate whether a particular NR should be configured with a “no handover (HO)” status. [0089]: To the extent that it is determined that the identified cell(s) provide favorable wireless coverage and has an LTE-DC rating of “preferred,” the serving cell triggers a UE handover to the identified neighbor cell as a target cell at 716. [0106]: users of the services provided by the cell selector 134 or the neighbor relations manager/cell selection server 830 can log into their on-line accounts and provision the servers 110 or the neighbor relations manager/cell selection server 830 with logic and/or business rules. In addition, the web portal 902 can be used to update maintenance status, to enter, view and/or otherwise modify configuration parameters, e.g., including associations of LTE-5G DC attributes (e.g. handover) with one or more of the eNBs and/or 5G gNBs, and so on)
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filed date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Matsuo to comprise “wherein the instruction to change the configuration is an instruction to change a value of a parameter of a neighboring cell included in a list of neighboring cells displayed by the GUI, the parameter being a handover allowed parameter” taught by Lei.
One of ordinary skilled in the art would have been motivated because it would have enabled for managing dual connectivity with dynamic anchor cell selection (Lei, [0001]).
Regarding claim 6, Matsuo-Lei disclose the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the updated data comprises one of deleting a neighbor cell, adding a neighbor cell, or updating a value of the one or more neighboring cells (Matsuo, [0014]: manual selection executing unit which accepts manual selection of a CSG cell, and if the selected CSG cell has not been stored in the white list storing unit, requests the Mobility Management Entity to add the CSG cell to the white list).
Regarding claim 7, Matsuo-Lei discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the configuration may include one or more parameters of: a neighbor name, a cell name, a cell identifier, a public land mobile network (PLMN) ID, a carrier frequency, a physical cell ID, a Neighbor eNodeB ID, a tracking area code(TAC), a Neighbor Type value, a Cell Individual Offset, a Measurement Object Offset Frequency, and rank (Matsuo, [0049]: UE 10 transmits a Tracking Area Update message (this is referred to as "white list update request") including a cell ID of the CSG cell selected by the user, to an MME 70 via a source HeNB 30 and an HeNB gateway 50 (S12, S14 and S16). When receiving the Tracking Area Update message, the MME 70 adds the cell ID of the user's desired CSG cell which is included in the white list update request).
Regarding claims 8 and 15; the claims are interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 1.
Regarding claims 13 and 20; the claims are interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claims 6.
Regarding claim 14; the claims are interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claims 7.
Claims 2, 9, 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsuo in view of Lei, as applied to claim 1, in further view of Sambandan et al. (US 2021/0297508 A1).
Regarding claim 2, Matsuo-Lei discloses the method as claimed in claim 1.
However, Matsuo-Lei does not disclose the updated data is received from the base station via a notification from a netconf server.
In an analogous art, Sambandan discloses the updated data is received from the base station via a notification from a netconf server ([0067]: the NETCONF server 150 creates a NETCONF “candidate” datastore in the data persistence database 142 for the controller 104 if one has not already been created (by copying the current NETCONF running datastore maintained by the NETCONF server 150 in the data persistence database 142 for the controller 104) and edit the NETCONF candidate datastore by changing one or more configuration parameters specified in the received NETCONF RPC.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filed date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Matsuo-Lei to comprise “the updated data is received from the base station via a notification from a netconf server” taught by Sambandan.
One of ordinary skilled in the art would have been motivated because it would have enabled to retrieve the current configuration and operational state data for the controller (Sambandan, [0066]).
Regarding claims 9 and 16; the claims are interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claims 2.
Claims 3, 10, 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsuo in view of Lei, as applied to claim 1, in further view of Purkayastha et al. (US 8,335,171 B1).
Regarding claim 3, Matsuo-Lei discloses the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the instruction to change a configuration is to update the parameter in the one or more neighboring cells (Lei, [0106]: users of the services provided by the cell selector 134 or the neighbor relations manager/cell selection server 830 can log into their on-line accounts and provision the servers 110 or the neighbor relations manager/cell selection server 830 with logic and/or business rules. In addition, the web portal 902 can be used to update maintenance status, to enter, view and/or otherwise modify configuration parameters, e.g., including associations of LTE-5G DC attributes (e.g. handover) with one or more of the eNBs and/or 5G gNBs, and so on).
However, Matsuo-Lei does not disclose wherein upon receiving the instruction, the method further comprises: creating, by the configuration manager, a workorder having a scheduling window; and sending, by the configuration manager, an edit remote procedure call (RPC) to a netconf server during the scheduling window, wherein upon receiving the edit RPC, the netconf server updates the parameter in the one or more neighboring cells.
In an analogous art, Purkayastha discloses wherein upon receiving the instruction, the method further comprises: creating, by the configuration manager, a workorder having a scheduling window; and sending, by the configuration manager, an edit remote procedure call (RPC) to a netconf server during the scheduling window, wherein upon receiving the edit RPC, the netconf server updates the parameter in the one or more neighboring cells (column 4, 41-45: Provisioning server 130 may permit network device 125 to receive configuration data from user device 110 (e.g., provisioning client 115) and/or provision the configuration of network devices 135. In an implementation, provisioning server 130 may include a NETCONF provisioning server. Column 10, 9-17: the task manager may schedule the provisioning and may manage successful and unsuccessful provisioning based on a fully atomic or a partially atomic approach. As will be described in greater detail below, in an implementation, task manager 415 may issue, for example, LOCK, UNLOCK, EDIT-CONFIG, and COMMIT RPC commands to network devices 135 according to the NETCONF protocol, during a provisioning process).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filed date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Matsuo-Lei to comprise “wherein upon receiving the instruction, the method further comprises: creating, by the configuration manager, a workorder having a scheduling window; and sending, by the configuration manager, an edit remote procedure call (RPC) to a netconf server during the scheduling window, wherein upon receiving the edit RPC, the netconf server updates the parameter in the one or more neighboring cells” taught by Purkayastha.
One of ordinary skilled in the art would have been motivated because it would have enabled to schedule issuing RPC command during a provisioning process (Purkayastha, Column 10, 9-17).
Regarding claims 10 and 17; the claims are interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claims 3.
Claims 4, 11, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsuo in view of Lei in view of Purkayastha, as applied to claim 3, in further view of Demonget et al. (US 2025/0056360 A1).
Regarding claim 4, Matsuo-Lei-Purkayastha discloses the method as claimed in claim 3.
However, Matsuo-Lei -Purkayastha wherein the edit RPC is sent based on and subsequent to the workorder being approved by an authorized user.
In an analogous art, Demonget discloses wherein the edit RPC is sent based on and subsequent to the workorder being approved by an authorized user ([0053]: When OAMs 212 receives the output (i.e., new operating parameter values) from RAN coordinator 214, each OAM 212 may accept or deny/reject the submitted parameter changes (block 810), depending various factors, such as predefined rules or manual approval by an administrator of that OAM. Furthermore, OAMs 212 may implement the accepted parameter changes on target access stations 210 (block 812) (e.g., reconfigure the access stations 210 that the OAM 212 manages).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filed date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Matsuo-Lei-Purkayastha to comprise “wherein the edit RPC is sent based on and subsequent to the workorder being approved by an authorized user” taught by Demonget.
One of ordinary skilled in the art would have been motivated because it would have enabled to forward instructions for parameter changes to reconfigure each of access stations, so that each of access stations handles appropriate traffic load (Demonget , [0015]).
Regarding claims 11 and 18; the claims are interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claims 4.
Claims 5, 12, 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Matsuo in view of Lei in view of Herr et al. (US 2018/0338291 A1) in further view of Purkayastha et al. (US 8,335,171 B1).
Regarding claim 5, Matsuo-Lei discloses the method as claimed in claim 1.
However, Matsuo-Lei does not disclose wherein the instruction to change a configuration is to reset the one or more neighboring cells.
In an analogous art, Herr discloses wherein the instruction to change a configuration is to reset the one or more neighboring cells ([0030]: the UE 300 may also support a radio frequency neighbor monitoring service, controlling the UE's measurements of neighbor cell radio conditions. Applications such as the application 310A and 310B may provide a user interface 320 to allow user selections—to select, for example, initial configuration, reconfiguration, or gathering neighboring cell information that the base station may use in determining if a reconfiguration is needed).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filed date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Matsuo-Lei to comprise “wherein the instruction to change a configuration is to reset the one or more neighboring cells” taught by Herr.
One of ordinary skilled in the art would have been motivated because it would have enabled reconfiguring the wireless base station based at least in part on the neighboring cell information and, in response to determining that the reconfiguring has been successful, incrementally increasing cellular transmit power (Herr, [0005]).
However, Matsuo-Lei-Herr does not disclose wherein upon receiving the instruction, the method further comprises: sending, by the configuration manager, an edit remote procedure call (RPC) to a netconf server, wherein upon receiving the edit RPC, the netconf server updates the configuration in the one or more neighboring cells.
In an analogous art, Purkayastha discloses wherein upon receiving the instruction, the method further comprises: sending, by the configuration manager, an edit remote procedure call (RPC) to a netconf server, wherein upon receiving the edit RPC, the netconf server updates the configuration in the one or more neighboring cells (column 4, 41-45: Provisioning server 130 may permit network device 125 to receive configuration data from user device 110 (e.g., provisioning client 115) and/or provision the configuration of network devices 135. In an implementation, provisioning server 130 may include a NETCONF provisioning server. Column 10, 9-17: the task manager may schedule the provisioning and may manage successful and unsuccessful provisioning based on a fully atomic or a partially atomic approach. As will be described in greater detail below, in an implementation, task manager 415 may issue, for example, LOCK, UNLOCK, EDIT-CONFIG, and COMMIT RPC commands to network devices 135 according to the NETCONF protocol, during a provisioning process).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filed date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify Matsuo-Lei-Herr to comprise “wherein upon receiving the instruction, the method further comprises: sending, by the configuration manager, an edit remote procedure call (RPC) to a netconf server, wherein upon receiving the edit RPC, the netconf server updates the configuration in the one or more neighboring cells” taught by Purkayastha.
One of ordinary skilled in the art would have been motivated because it would have enabled to schedule issuing RPC command during a provisioning process (Purkayastha, Column 10, 9-17).
Regarding claims 12 and 19; the claims are interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claims 5.
Additional References
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicants disclosure.
Dhaka et al., US 2024/0205097 A1: New Site Impact Analysis For Network Improvement.
Shankaranarayanan et al., US 2023/0308959 A1: Method and System of Managing Plurality of Neighbor Cells of a Target Cell.
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.
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/J.C.T/Examiner, Art Unit 2446
/BRIAN J. GILLIS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2446
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