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 .
Claims 1 – 20 are pending in this Office Correspondence.
Response to Arguments
This Office Correspondence is in response to amendment filed on October 9, 2025. Applicant amended claims and hence, needed a new ground of rejection.
Priority
This application is a continuation of U.S. Application No. 17/700,008, filed March 21, 2022, now U.S. Patent 12,050,608, which is a continuation of U.S. Application No. 16/271,778, now U.S. Patent 11,281,673, filed February 8, 2019, which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Pat. App. No. 62/628,229, filed February 8, 2018, and U.S. Provisional Pat. App. No. 62/739,638, filed October 1, 2018.
Claim Objections
Claims 5, 11 and 18 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Examiner could not find details for the term “SON access broker” or “access broker” or just “broker” in the specification.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 1: The claims 1 recites a “method for providing scalable analytics, comprising: providing a base platform in communication with a radio access network (RAN) . . . ;
providing an adapter layer of adapters to communicate . . . ; and providing a self-organizing network (SON) of the telecommunications network . . ..” the claim(s) recites a series of steps and, therefore, is a process
Step 2A Prong One:
"providing a base platform in communication with a radio access network (RAN) for compute, storage and network to data lifecycle management services" as drafted recites a mentally performable process as an evaluation or judgement. Please see Instant paragraphs [0044] where one can mentally evaluate a software-defined cloud platform that provides compute, storage and network to the services that are responsible for data life-cycle management.
“providing an adapter layer of adapters to communicate with at least one base station in a RAN” as drafted recites a mentally performable process as an evaluation or judgement. Please see Instant paragraphs [0117] where one can mentally evaluate a cloud-scale adapter framework designed to bring data into base platform from external sources.
“providing a self-organizing network (SON) of the telecommunications network” as drafted recites a mentally performable process as an evaluation or judgement. Please see Instant paragraphs [0044] where one can mentally evaluate to provide service optimizations, which includes intelligent power-level control for Self-Organizing Networks (SONs).
These imitations are processes that, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, cover performance of the limitation in the mind, but for the recitation of generic computer components. That is, other than reciting a "database" or "processor", nothing in the claim element precludes the step from practically being performed in a human mind or with the aid of pen and paper. For example, “providing” in the context of this claim encompasses a user mentally, and with the aid of pen and paper, within the plurality of command sets, “providing a base platform in communication with a radio access network (RAN) for compute, storage and network to data lifecycle management services; providing an adapter layer of adapters to communicate with at least one base station in a RAN; and providing a self-organizing network (SON) of the telecommunications network.” If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong Two: The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The limitation "providing” is recognized by the courts as well-understood, routine , and conventional activities when they are claimed in a merely generic manner (See MPEP 2106.05(g)). The limitations represents an extra-solution activity because it is a mere nominal or tangential addition to the claim, a mere generic transmission and presentation of collected and analyzed data. (See MPEP 2106.05(g)). Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B: The limitation "providing” is recognized by the courts as well-understood, routine , and conventional activities when they are claimed in a merely generic manner (e.g., at a high level of generality) or as insignificant extra-solution activity (see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv) Storing and retrieving information in memory, Versata Dev. Group Inc....; Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (computer receives and sends information over a network); (v) Presenting offers and gathering statistics, OIP Techs., 788 F.3d at 1362-63, 115 USPQ2d at 1092-93). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Therefore, claims 14 and 20 are rejected for the same rational under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Accordingly, claims 1, 14 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Further the limitations in the dependent claims 2 – 13 and 15 – 19, respectively, merely specify the type of the data gathered and analyzed without adding significantly more. Analysis of the dependent claims is shown below.
Claim 2 is dependent on claim 1 and includes all the limitations of claim 1. Therefore, claim 2 recites the same abstract idea of claim 1. The claim recites the additional limitation of “providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake includes providing the access using data streams”, which is equivalent to merely saying “apply it”, and amounts to no more than mere instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer does not amount to significantly more. Same rationale applies to claims 8 and 15, since they also recite limitations that further elaborate on the abstract idea.
Claim 3 is dependent on claim 2 and includes all the limitations of claim 2. Therefore, claim 3 recites the same abstract idea of claim 2. The claim recites the additional limitation of “providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake further includes using RESTful web services”, which further elaborates on the abstract idea, since analyzing of information is a mental process, and therefore, does not meaningfully limits the claim. Same rationale applies to claim 9 and 16, since they also recite limitations that further elaborate on the abstract idea.
Claim 4 is dependent on claim 2 and includes all the limitations of claim 2. Therefore, claim 4 recites the same abstract idea of claim 2. The claim recites the additional limitation of “analytic model data from the data lake includes data analytics from the data lake”, which further elaborates on the abstract idea by specifying data types or information that is used in the profile generation, and therefore, does not amount to significantly more. Same rationale applies to claims 10 and 17, since they also recite limitations that further elaborate on the abstract idea.
Claim 5 is dependent on claim 1 and includes all the limitations of claim 1. Therefore, claim 5 recites the same abstract idea of claim 1. The claim recites the additional limitation of “providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake includes providing a third-party SON application of the SON with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake through a SON access broker”, which further elaborates on the abstract idea, since analyzing of information is a mental process, and therefore, does not meaningfully limits the claim. Same rationale applies to claim 11 and 18, since they also recite limitations that further elaborate on the abstract idea.
Claim 6 is dependent on claim 1 and includes all the limitations of claim 1. Therefore, claim 6 recites the same abstract idea of claim 1. The claim recites the additional limitation of “the access is published through a SON access broker as RESTful web services”, which further elaborates on the abstract idea, since analyzing of information is a mental process, and therefore, does not meaningfully limits the claim. Same rationale applies to claim 12, since they also recite limitations that further elaborate on the abstract idea.
Claim 7 is dependent on claim 1 and includes all the limitations of claim 1. Therefore, claim 7 recites the same abstract idea of claim 1. The claim recites the additional limitation of “one or more power levels of the SON are adjusted based on the analytic model data”, which further elaborates on the abstract idea, since analyzing of information is a mental process, and therefore, does not meaningfully limits the claim. Same rationale applies to claims 13 and 19, since they also recite limitations that further elaborate on the abstract idea.
Therefore, claims 1 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception without significantly more than the abstract idea.
Double Patenting
Claim 1 – 20 of this application is patentably indistinct from claims 1 – 20 of Application No. 17/700,008, now U.S. Patent 12,050,608. Pursuant to 37 CFR 1.78(f) or pre-AIA 37 CFR 1.78(b), when two or more applications filed by the same applicant contain patentably indistinct claims, elimination of such claims from all but one application may be required in the absence of good and sufficient reason for their retention during pendency in more than one application. Applicant is required to either cancel the patentably indistinct claims from all but one application or maintain a clear line of demarcation between the applications. See MPEP § 822.
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 claims at issue 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); and 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 a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
The USPTO internet Web site contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit http://www.uspto.gov/forms/. The filing date of the application will determine what form should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp.
The subject matter claimed in the instant application is fully disclosed in the co-pending application and is covered by the co-pending application since the co-pending application and the application are claiming common subject matter, as follows:
Application: 18/789,501
Application:17/700,008, Patent: 12050608
1. A method for providing scalable analytics for a radio access network (RAN), comprising: providing a base platform in communication with a RAN for compute, storage and network to data lifecycle management services, the base platform further comprising a data lake, a plurality of distributed data and application containers, a data pipe, a plurality of data services, and a plurality of data platform managers; providing an adapter layer of adapters to communicate with at least one base station in a RAN and at least one core network node in a telecommunications core network, the telecommunications core network providing services to the RAN; and providing a plurality of applications hosted over the base platform in the data pipe, the applications using data in transit to or from the data lake, wherein the plurality of applications include at least providing analytics data to one or more dashboards and executing machine learning algorithms on data received from the RAN, and wherein the plurality of applications are located in the plurality of distributed data and application containers, and are orchestrated by the base platform via a container orchestration management system.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake includes providing the access using data streams.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake further includes using RESTful web services.
4. The method of claim 2, wherein analytic model data from the data lake includes data analytics from the data lake.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake includes providing a third-party SON application of the SON with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake through a SON access broker.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the access is published through a SON access broker as RESTful web services.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more power levels of the SON are adjusted based on the analytic model data.
8. The system of claim 20, wherein provide the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake includes provide the access using data streams.
9. The system of claim 8, wherein provide the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake further includes use RESTful web services.
10. The system method of claim 8, wherein analytic model data from the data lake includes data analytics from the data lake.
11. The system method of claim 20, wherein provide the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake includes provide a third-party SON application of the SON with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake through a SON access broker.
12. The system of claim 20, wherein the access is published through a SON access broker as RESTful web services.
13. The system of claim 20, wherein one or more power levels of the SON are adjusted based on the analytic model data.
14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing instructions for providing scalable analytics for a telecommunications network radio access network (RAN), which when executed, cause a system to perform steps comprising:
providing a base platform in communication with a radio access network (RAN) for compute, storage and network to data lifecycle management services, the base platform further comprising a data lake, a plurality of distributed data and application containers, a data pipe, a plurality of data services, and a plurality of data platform managers;
providing an adapter layer of adapters to communicate with at least one base station in a RAN and at least one core network node in a telecommunications core network, the telecommunications core network providing services to the RAN; and
providing a self-organizing network (SON) of the telecommunications network with real- time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake.
15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake includes providing the access using data streams.
16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake further includes using RESTful web services.
17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein analytic model data includes data analytics from the data lake.
18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake includes providing a third-party SON application of the SON with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake through a SON access broker.
19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein one or more power levels of the SON is adjusted based on the analytic model data.
20. A system for providing scalable analytics for a telecommunications network, comprising:
a base platform in communication with a radio access network (RAN) for compute, storage and network to data lifecycle management services, the base platform further comprising a data lake, a plurality of distributed data and application containers, a data pipe, a plurality of data services, and a plurality of data platform managers;
an adapter layer of adapters to communicate with at least one base station in a RAN and at least one core network node in a telecommunications core network, the telecommunications core network providing services to the RAN; and
a plurality of applications hosted over the base platform in the data pipe, the applications using data in transit to or from the data lake,
wherein the base platform is configured to provide a self-organizing network (SON) of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake.
1. A method for providing scalable analytics for a radio access network (RAN), comprising: providing a base platform in communication with a RAN for compute, storage and network to data lifecycle management services, the base platform further comprising a data lake, a plurality of distributed data and application containers, a data pipe, a plurality of data services, and a plurality of data platform managers; providing an adapter layer of adapters to communicate with at least one base station in a RAN and at least one core network node in a telecommunications core network, the telecommunications core network providing services to the RAN; and providing a plurality of applications hosted over the base platform in the data pipe, the applications using data in transit to or from the data lake, wherein the plurality of applications include at least providing analytics data to one or more dashboards and executing machine learning algorithms on data received from the RAN, and wherein the plurality of applications are located in the plurality of distributed data and application containers, and are orchestrated by the base platform via a container orchestration management system.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the container orchestration management system is one of Kubernetes or Docker.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the container orchestration management system is triggered at the base platform based on inputs from the radio access network.
4. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing, by the base platform, pipeline processing jobs for ingesting external data into the data lake from gateways.
5. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing, by the base platform, storage services providing data persistence using one or more of a software framework for storing and processing applications, a database management system and a messaging service.
6. The method of claim 5 further comprising providing, by the base platform, storage services providing data persistence using one or more of Hadoop, Cassandra and Kafka.
7. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing, by the base platform, and catalog services comprising meta-data sets catalogued to search and correlate data sets, tag, schema, sourcing;
8. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing, by the base platform, security services for administering and governing data set access.
9. The method of claim 1 wherein providing an adapter layer includes enabling the data lake to access data from Internet services or customer databases.
10. The method of claim 1 further comprising sending, to the data lake, data from at least one of a radio access network controller, customer data, and external data.
11. The method of claim 9 wherein the sending to data lake, data from at least one of a radio access network controller, customer data, and external data is performed by way of the data pipe, the data pipe comprising an orchestrated set of processes.
12. The method of claim 1 wherein the data pipe utilizes fog computing.
13. The method of claim 1 wherein the data lake utilizes cloud computing.
14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing instructions for providing scalable analytics for a radio access network (RAN), when executed, cause a system to perform steps comprising:
providing a base platform in communication with a RAN for compute, storage and network to data lifecycle management services, the base platform further comprising a data lake, a plurality of distributed data and application containers, a data pipe, a plurality of data services, and a plurality of data platform managers;
providing an adapter layer of adapters to communicate with at least one base station in a RAN and at least one core network node in a telecommunications core network, the telecommunications core network providing services to the RAN; and
providing a plurality of applications hosted over the base platform in the data pipe, the applications using data in transit to or from the data lake, wherein the plurality of applications include at least providing analytics data to one or more dashboards and executing machine learning algorithms on data received from the RAN, and wherein the plurality of applications are located in the plurality of distributed data and application containers, and are orchestrated by the base platform via a container orchestration management system.
15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, further comprising instructions wherein the container orchestration management system is triggered at the base platform based on inputs from the radio access network.
16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14 further comprising instructions for providing, by the base platform, pipeline processing jobs for ingesting external data into the data lake from gateways.
17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14 further comprising instructions for providing, by the base platform, storage services providing data persistence using one or more of a software framework for storing and processing applications, a database management system and a messaging service.
18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14 further comprising instructions for providing, by the base platform, and catalog services comprising meta-data sets catalogued to search and correlate data sets, tag, schema, sourcing;
19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14 further comprising instructions wherein the data pipe utilizes fog computing, and wherein the data lake utilizes cloud computing.
20. A system for providing scalable analytics for a radio access network (RAN), comprising: a base platform in communication with a RAN for compute, storage and network to data lifecycle management services, the base platform further comprising a data lake, a plurality of distributed data and application containers, a data pipe, a plurality of data services, and a plurality of data platform managers; an adapter layer of adapters to communicate with at least one base station in a RAN and at least one core network node in a telecommunications core network, the telecommunications core network providing services to the RAN; and a plurality of applications hosted over the base platform in the data pipe, the applications using data in transit to or from the data lake, wherein the plurality of applications include at least providing analytics data to one or more dashboards and executing machine learning algorithms on data received from the RAN, and wherein the plurality of applications are located in the plurality of distributed data and application containers, and are orchestrated by the base platform via a container orchestration management system.
Claims 1 – 20 are rejected under the judicially created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1 – 20 of co-pending application No. 17/700,008, now U.S. Patent 12,050,608. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because of corresponding language that recites virtually all of the same elements and functions claimed in the claim 1 of instant application and claim 1 of the copending invention, e.g., “providing an adapter layer of adapters to communicate with at least one base station in a RAN and at least one core network node in a telecommunications core network, the telecommunications core network providing services to the RAN.”
The claimed differences would be obvious to a programmer of ordinary skill because the instant claims are merely broader and/or alternate variations of the claims recited in the co-pending application.
Because the instant claims merely add/modify the additional elements from the set of elements and functions claimed in the parent application, such modifications would be readily apparent to a programmer of ordinary skill.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to omit/add/modify the additional elements of claim 1 to arrive at the claim 1 of the instant application because the person would have realized that the remaining element would perform the same functions as before.
It would have been obvious to modify instant claims in order to enable receiving metadata regarding the data stream from a data source at an intelligent data pipe en route to a data store, where the metadata regarding the data stream is received at a service orchestrator, thus performing the computations on data stream in simple and efficient manner.
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.
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 – 4, 6 – 10, 12 – 17 and 19 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent 10,142,242 issued to Pablo Tapia (“Tapia”) and further in view of USPGPUB 2016/0135067 issued to Shumel Morad et al. (“Morad”).
With respect to claims 1, 14 and 20, Tapia discloses a method, program product and a system for providing scalable analytics for a telecommunications network, comprising:
providing a base platform in communication with a radio access network (RAN) for compute, storage and network to data lifecycle management services, the base platform further comprising a data lake, a plurality of distributed data and application containers, a data pipe, a plurality of data services, and a plurality of data platform managers; and
providing a self-organizing network (SON) of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake.
Tapia discloses claimed invention substantially as claimed, however, Tapia does not explicitly teach providing an adapter layer of adapters to communicate with at least one base station in a RAN and at least one core network node in a telecommunications core network, the telecommunications core network providing services to the RAN.
However, Morad discloses providing an adapter layer of adapters to communicate with at least one base station in a RAN and at least one core network node in a telecommunications core network, the telecommunications core network providing services to the RAN (the cellular radio network comprises two or more network devices, and automatically a configuration of one or more of the network devices according to the performance; the analyzing produces one or more change to a sector neighbor relations dataset used by two or more base stations of the cellular radio network for linking between some of the base stations, and wherein the one or more change is used to improve the performance; Para [0011 – 0012]; provided an apparatus for optimizing a cellular radio network. The processing unit comprises processor instructions adapted to receive two or more call detail records from a repository of a cellular radio network using the one or more network interface, wherein the cellular radio network comprises two or more directional sector antennas (Para [0029]); a network adapter card or network interface in each computing/processing device receives computer readable program instructions from the network and forwards the computer readable program instructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium within the respective computing/processing device (Para [0060]); and the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider Para [0061]).
Since, both Tapia and Morad are same field of endeavor, they are combinable/modifiable. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to modify the teachings of Tapia with the teachings of Morad in order to enable using call detail record (CDR)-based sector pair usage and subscriber movement scores, so that a network optimization module computes cellular radio network performance values, calculates changes to cellular radio network configuration data and performs self-organizing and optimizing network (SON) functions, thus improving performance of the cellular radio network based on the subscriber usage and CDRs.
In a modifying system an adapter layer of adapters is provided to communicate with a base station in the RAN and a core network node in a telecommunications core network in simple and efficient manner.
As to claims 2, 8 and 15, providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake includes providing the access using data streams (Tapia, column 1, Self-Organizing Networks (SON) are networks capable of any or all of automatic self-configuration, self-optimization, or self-healing. For radio access networks, such as telecommunication networks, self-configuration may include use of “plug-and-play” techniques for automatically configuring and integrating new base stations into the networks; and column 5, Examples of SON tools may include any or all of an automated report generating tool, a parameter consistency check tool, a real-time alert tool, a mobility evaluation tool, a coverage and interference management tool, a network outage tool, a network configuration tool, a load distribution tool, a spectrum carving tool, or a special events tool).
As to claims 3, 9 and 16, providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake further includes using RESTful web services (Tapia, column 5, examples of SON tools may include any or all of an automated report generating tool, a parameter consistency check tool, a real-time alert tool, a mobility evaluation tool, a coverage and interference management tool, a network outage tool, a network configuration tool, a load distribution tool, a spectrum carving tool, or a special events tool; and column 7-8, the SON portal may receive, via the API, visualizations from the visualization tool and may provide those visualization to a user device through, for example, web page. The SON portal may also receive other network information or performance indicators via the API from any of the SON components, such as the consolidation engine 212 or the visualization engine).
As to claims 4, 10 and 17, analytic model data from the data lake includes data analytics from the data lake (Tapia, column 1, Each of these tools is entirely self-contained and handles everything from interfacing directly with network components to retrieve measurements and configure parameters, to smart analysis of and decisions regarding measurements and configurations, to presentation of users of relevant information).
As to claims 6 and 12, the access is published through a SON access broker as RESTful web services (Morad, Para [0066]: each sector of the cellular radio network corresponds to a directional sector antenna that allows user equipment, such as a cellular phone and the like, to perform mobile communications, such as voice calls or data access to a network, in a geographical coverage area).
As to claims 7, 13 and 19, one or more power levels of the SON are adjusted based on the analytic model data (Morad, Para [0054]: a SON apparatus performs a network change automatically by changing a configuration parameter of a cellular radio network. For example, the SON apparatus computes additions and/or deletions to a dataset of neighbor relationships between sectors and a neighbor relationship dataset is updated automatically by the SON apparatus by sending an extended hypertext language command to an OSS).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 11 and 18 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 prior art made of record do not teach or fairly suggest, “providing the SON of the telecommunications network with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake includes providing a third-party SON application of the SON with real-time or near real-time access to analytic model data from the data lake through a SON access broker’ as recited in dependent claims 5, 11 and 18.
Examiner Notes
The examiner has considered the applicant's claims in light of the disclosure. However, the examiner respectfully reminds the applicant that during prosecution before the USPTO, claims are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation, and the scope of a claim cannot be narrowed by reading disclosed limitations into the claim. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). The Office must apply the broadest reasonable meaning to the claim language, taking into account any definitions presented in the specification. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citing In re Bass, 314 F.3d 575,577(Fed. Cir. 2002)); “[i]t is the claims that measure the invention.” SRIInt’l v. Matsushita Elec. Corp. of Am., 775 F.2d 1107, 1121 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (enbanc). Written description may not be read into a claim when the claim language is broader than the embodiment. SuperGuide Corp. v. DirecTV Enters, Inc., 358 F.3d 870, 875 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citing Electro Med. Sys. S.A. v. Cooper Life Sci., Inc., 34 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1994))
Note that “limitations appearing in the specification will not be read into the claims, and … interpreting what is meant by a word in a claim is not to be confused with adding an extraneous limitation appearing in the specification, which is improper.” Intervet Am., v. Kee-Vet Labs., 887 F.2d 1050, 1053, 12 USPQ2d 1474 1476 (fed. Cir. 1989).
“The ordinary and customary meaning of a claim term is the meaning that the term would have to a person of ordinary skill in the art in question at the time of the invention, i.e., as of the effective filing date of the patent application.” Phillips v. AWH Corp,. 415 F.3d 1303, 1313, 75 USPQ2d 1321, 1326 (fed. Cir. 2005).
“One purpose for examining the specification is to determine if the patentee has limited the scope of the claims.’… For example, an inventor may choose to be his own lexicographer is he defines the specific terms used to describe the invention’ with reasonable clarity, deliberateness, and precision.” Such a definition may appear in the written description, … or in the prosecution history, …” Teleflex, Inc. v. Ficosa N. Am Corp., 299 F.3d 1313, 1325, 63 USPQ2d 1374, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2002).
Prior art pertinent to the disclosed invention is also cited and Applicants are reminded that they must consider all cited art under Rule 111(c) when amending the claims to conform with 35 U.S.C. 112.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Listed prior art could be used as an obviousness type Office correspondence.
Bishop (USPGPUB 2017/0075693), which discloses generally to a processing framework for stream processing systems, and in particular to providing an improved stream processing framework that uses a combination of concurrent and multiplexed processing; Woolward (USPGPUB 2017/0279770), which discloses receiving metadata about a deployed container from a container orchestration layer, where container is deployed in a server. A model is retrieved using the determined application or service. A high-level declarative security policy associated with the deployed container is generated using model that indicates application or service with which the deployed container is permitted to communicate. A low-level firewall rule set is produced using the high-level declarative security policy. The low-level firewall rule set is applied to data network traffic; Tekade (USPGPUB 2016/0077925), which utilizing multiple threads to facilitate parallel data copying to reduce an amount of time associated with backing up data. A request to copy application is received that indicates a number of available threads. A first available thread is used to select files from the application for backup. Selecting a file includes adding files to a work queue and creating backup work items associated with the work queue files. The files in the work queue are processed by a multiple threads in parallel such that an amount of time associated with backup up the application is reduced; and Stojanovic (U.S. Patent 10,620,924), which discloses integrating data obtained from various sources, and are particularly related to ontology induction through statistical profiling and reference schema matching.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHAHID AL ALAM whose telephone number is (571)272-4030. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:00 AM-5:00 PM.
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December 26, 2025
/SHAHID A ALAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2161