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 § 102
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 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.
Claims 1-5, 10-12 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by EP 2919531 (hereinafter, ‘531).
Regarding claims 1 and 20, ‘531 discloses a computer-implemented method performed by a network node to select at least one carrier to lock based on an interference level , the network node comprising: processing circuitry; memory coupled with the processing circuitry, wherein the memory includes instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the node to perform operations (paragraph 64, lines 1-3: “a central processing unit (CPU) 308 provides task co-ordination and data processing functionality. Sets of instructions and data for the CPU 308 are stored in memory means 309”) comprising:, the method comprising:
identifying at least one network node from a plurality of network nodes having a defined interference level related to defined traffic data and a energy consumption value (paragraph 32, lines 2-5: “performance indicators may … include current cell (and/or site) traffic level or load (… UUDL interference”; Paragraph 43, lines 1-2: “there is also provided a system for reducing power consumption in a cellular network”); and
for the identified at least one network node, selecting with a machine learning, ML, model at least one carrier from a plurality of carriers to lock within a local zone (paragraph 11, lines 1-3: “Current Radio Access Network Power Save execution mechanisms are intended to help mobile network operators save electrical energy by simply locking cells (or base station sectors/sites) during periods with expected low traffic.”).
Regarding claim 2, ‘531 discloses signaling a request to lock the selected at least one carrier (paragraph 11, lines 4-5: “power save is intended to be applied on individual cells (or carriers) in areas with low traffic during specific time periods”).
Regarding claim 3, ‘531 discloses that the lock comprises a cell sleep mode or a cell turn off mode (paragraph 4, line 8: micro-sleep).
Regarding claim 4, ‘531 discloses that the identifying is based on a clustering technique that clusters and classification of the plurality of network nodes (paragraph 22, lines 3-5: “grouping cells of the second candidate cell list into optimal batches or time schedules according to the adapted power save schedule, for the purpose of using in a powersave execution mechanism according to said recommended powersave profile”).
Regarding claim 5, ‘531 discloses that the plurality of network nodes are clustered and classified based on at least one or more of (i) network nodes that are energy efficient, (ii) network nodes that are non-energy efficient determined by a signal-to noise-interference-plus noise ratio, SINR, of at least one of a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, and a physical uplink control channel, PUCCH, that is greater than or equal to a defined first threshold value and determined into different local zones, (iii) network nodes that are not energy efficient nodes determined by a SINR of at least one of a PUSCH and a PUCCH that is less than the defined first threshold value, and (iv) a remainder of the plurality of network nodes (paragraph 67, lines 3-4: “subjecting one or more of the listed cellular base stations to a power save mechanism and monitoring the efficiency of the power saving”).
Regarding claim 10, ‘531 discloses that the ML model is either a classification model or a regression model that predicts key performance indicators, KPIs, from traffic performance management data (paragraph 17, line 17: “implementing a continuous closed loop system based on machine learning”).
Regarding claim 11, ‘531 discloses that the interference-related KPIs comprises at least one or more of a physical uplink shared channel, PUSCH, signal-to noise-interference-plus noise ratio, SINR, having a value below 2 dB and a physical uplink control channel, PUCCH, SINR having a value below 0 dB (paragraph 34, lines 6-7: “Handover and Inter Frequency Load Sharing (speech vs data) strategy during normal operation”).
Regarding claim 12, ‘531 discloses that the traffic performance management data comprises data related to at least one or more of (i) at least one user equipment included in a cell, (ii) at least one user equipment removed from the cell, (iii) radio resource control, RRC, connections for the cell, (iv) physical resource block, PRB, utilization for the cell, and (v) consumed energy for the cell (paragraph 11, lines 10-12: “The locking of resources is executed at the pre-defined schedule times with minimal traffic impact intended by soft-locking the cells, i.e. connected User Equipment (UE) will typically hand over to another cell and idle mode UEs will camp at another network location.”).
Regarding claim 18, ‘531 discloses: when the selected carrier can be locked, calculating an energy efficiency of the selected carrier (paragraph 67, lines 3-4: “subjecting one or more of the listed cellular base stations to a power save mechanism and monitoring the efficiency of the power saving”).
Regarding claim 19, ‘531 discloses that the network node comprises at least one of a base station, and edge node, and a cloud node (paragraph 67, lines 3-4: “subjecting one or more of the listed cellular base stations to a power save mechanism and monitoring the efficiency of the power saving”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-9 and 13-17 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art fails to disclosed the recited combination of elements performed by a network node, including calculating, on a per network node basis for the plurality of network nodes, an interference-energy-efficiency index corresponding to at least one of a carrier and a local zone of the at least network one node, and identifying the at least one network node based on the interference-energy-efficiency index, as in claim 6; wherein the value of the SINR is calculated from performance metric counter data, and wherein the SINR has a distribution of SINR values for at least one of the PUSCH and the PUCCH, as in claim 9; and wherein selecting at least one carrier from the plurality of carriers of the identified at least one network node to lock comprises (i) for the identified at least one network node, calculating an interference-energy efficiency index value per carrier, (ii) ranking the plurality of carriers according to the calculated interference-energy efficiency index values, (iii) choosing a carrier from the ranking to evaluate for locking, and (iv) evaluating the chosen carrier to determine whether the chosen carrier can be locked, as in claim 13.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Rajendran (US 2019/0200363) discloses dynamic power control in which conditions in a source cell and neighboring cells are monitored and uplink transmission power levels are dynamically adjusted based on those conditions.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAM BHATTACHARYA whose telephone number is (571)272-7917. The examiner can normally be reached weekdays, 9-5:30.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew D. Anderson can be reached at (571) 272-4177. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SAM BHATTACHARYA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646
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