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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted is being considered by the examiner.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claim 1-20 provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1-20 of copending Application No. 18602490 (reference application). Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because of following:
- With respect to claims, the Copending Application discloses one or more computing systems, comprising: memory storing computer program instructions for repairing a Radio Access Network (RAN) (see claim 1); and at least one processor configured to execute the computer program instructions, wherein the computer program instructions are configured to cause the at least one processor to: receive telemetry data comprising traffic information, performance logs, and fault logs from a plurality of base stations of the RAN (see claim 1, lines 7-8), determine based on the telemetry data, by a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) using one or more Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Machine Learning (ML) models, that an issue is occurring with equipment of the RAN (see claim 1, lines 9-13), and directly or indirectly send control instructions to at least one base station of the plurality of base stations via to implement a solution to the issue, by the RIC (see claim 1, lines 14-17). The Copending explicitly fails to discloses the issue is occurring with the equipment of the RAN, but Copending discloses the traffic information which consider as the issue with the RAN for determining the information of the RAN. Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date to consider the traffic information as issue to determine the RAN condition.
This is a provisional nonstatutory double patenting rejection because the patentably indistinct claims have not in fact been patented.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a1) as being anticipated by Ranganath et al. (WO 2023091664).
- With respect to claims 1, 12 and 20, Ranganath teaches one or more computing systems, comprising: memory storing computer program instructions for repairing a Radio Access Network (RAN) (e.g. Fig. 2 shows RAN and abstract discloses RAN); and at least one processor configured to execute the computer program instructions, wherein the computer program instructions are configured to cause the at least one processor to: receive telemetry data comprising traffic information, performance logs, and fault logs from a plurality of base stations of the RAN (e.g. claim 1 discloses the receiving telemetry data), determine based on the telemetry data, by a RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) using one or more Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Machine Learning (ML) models, that an issue is occurring with equipment of the RAN (see par. 52 discloses “Based on RAN-specific slice SLA requirements, the non-RT RIC 412 and the near-RT RIC 414 can fine-tune RAN behaviors to assure network slice SLAs dynamically. Utilizing slice specific performance metrics (e.g., based on measurement data 415 received from E2 nodes and/or UEs), the non-RT RIC 412 monitors long-term trends and patterns regarding RAN slice subnets’ performance, and trains AI/ML models to be deployed at the near-RT RIC 414 (e.g. trained AI/ML models 3c24 of Figure 3c)”), and directly or indirectly send control instructions to at least one base station of the plurality of base stations via to implement a solution to the issue, by the RIC (e.g. step configuration in claim 1 discloses “configuring at least one NAN of the set of NANs or the edge compute node according to the determined resource allocation such that resources indicated by the resource allocation are allocated to the corresponding edge app”).
- With respect to claims 2, 13, Ranganath teaches wherein the RIC is a Non-Real Time (NRT) RIC in the RAN (see par. 10-12 non-RT RIC) and the computer program instructions are further configured to cause the at least one processor to: store the telemetry data and equipment information for hardware in the RAN in a data repository (e.g. ); train the one or more AI/ML models using the stored traffic information, the performance logs, the fault logs, and the equipment information from the data repository, by the NRT RIC or another application of a network core; and deploy the one or more trained AI/ML models for monitoring the RAN, by the NRT RIC (e.g. par. 10 discloses ML/AI models).
- With respect to claims 3, 8, 13, 17, Ranganath teaches wherein the telemetry data and/or equipment information comprises temperatures, fan speeds, processor loads, memory usage, power consumption, health reports, performance reports, software and/or hardware faults that occurred during operation of respective equipment, dropped calls, bit rates, bands, numbers of users, beamforming information, Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNRs), Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratios (SINRs), jitter, makes and models of the equipment, types of hardware in the equipment and their capabilities, numbers and types of antennas, or any combination thereof (e.g. par. 47 discloses PM; par. 101 discloses SINR; par. 62 discloses power).
- With respect to claims 4, 9, 15, Ranganath teaches wherein the RAN has an Open RAN (O-RAN) architecture, and the equipment on which the issue is occurring comprises one or more Radio Units (RUs), one or more Distributed Units (DUs), one or more Centralized Units (CUs), or any combination thereof (e.g. par. 9 discloses “The present disclosure introduces an xApp manager that leverages the platform telemetry, capabilities and/or application traces to provide helpful information the xApps such as noisy neighbors, NIC congestion, platform reliability, dynamic power management, as well as active ephemeral user equipment (UE) communication traffic to sustain uplink and downlink connections and associated UE-to-distributed unit (DU) and/or UE-to-remote unit (RU) measurements that can be used for intelligent RAN analytics. Existing O-RAN standards focus on xApps that provide network intelligence”).
- With respect to claims 5, 14, Ranganath teaches wherein the computer program instructions comprise an rApp, the rApp is configured to send the solution to a Near-Real Time (RT) RIC via an A1 interface (see Fig. 3 discloses xAPP in near-RT RIC), and the xApp of the RT RIC is configured to directly send the control instructions to the at least one base station of the plurality of base stations to implement the solution to the issue (e.g. par. 28 discloses the control information to gNB and par. 138-142).
- With respect to claims 6, 16, Ranganath teaches wherein the issue comprises parameter mismatches and the control instructions comprise changes to the parameters of one or more Radio Units (RUs), one or more Distributed Units (DUs), one or more Centralized Units (CUs), or any combination thereof (e.g. block slice aware scheduler in Fig. 2 and par. 33-34 and Fig. 14).
- With respect to claims 7, Ranganath teaches wherein the control instructions comprise instructions to reset a Radio Unit (RU), move users to one or more other RUs, change frequency bands used by the RU, change beamforming characteristics for the RU, any combination thereof (e.g. par. 173 for changes parameter with objective of optimizing a specific metric).
- With respect to claims 10, 18, Ranganath teaches wherein the control instructions comprise instructions to migrate a Distributed Unit (DU) or a Centralized Unit (CU) to a different server (see par. 47).
- With respect to claims 11, 19, Ranganath teaches wherein the one or more AI/ML models are configured to estimate when failure of the equipment will occur due to the issue and the computer program instructions are further configured to cause the at least one processor to: send a notification to a network engineer or a technician indicating what the issue is and when the issue is predicted to cause a failure (see par. 31 discloses “the MO 3c02 may also provide or perform failure detection, notification, location, and repairs that are intended to eliminate or reduce faults and keep a segment in an operational state and support activities required to provide the services of a subscriber access network to users/subscribers”).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892.
. Examiner's Note: Examiner has cited particular paragraphs or columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHUC H TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3172. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 Flex.
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/PHUC H TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2471