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 §103
2. 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.
Claims 1, 3- 5, 8-9, 11,13, 16- 17, and 19, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Betitou et al (Pub. No. US 2018/0020093 A1; hereinafter Betitou) in view of Bennett et al (Pub. No. US 2007/0183396 A1; hereinafter Bennett)
Consider claims 1, 13, and 14, Betitou clearly shows and discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium, an apparatus, and a system comprising: a memory subsystem storing instructions; and processing circuitry configured to execute the instructions to: receive, by a telephony server providing telephony services to a destination telephony address, an initiation request for a telephone call from an external telephony device to the destination telephony address (processing a telephone call from a calling party in order to determine the disposition of the call, which comprises receiving a telephone phone call from the calling party that is directed towards a particular person or business entity) (paragraphs: 0011 and fig. 1); determine, by the telephony server and based on a stored setting associated with the destination telephony address, whether call forwarding is enabled by the destination telephony address (a telephone call from a calling party to a particular person in order to determine whether the call should be forwarded to the particular person) (paragraphs: 0069 ); and perform one of: based on determining that the call forwarding is not enabled: provide telephony services for the telephone call by the telephony server, the telephony services comprising at least one of an automated receptionist service, a call queue service, or a shared line group service (when the call is determined to be from an unauthorized calling party based on a match of caller identification information or on the separate call processing criteria that is provided to the artificial intelligence, wherein the artificial intelligence terminates the call, forwards the call to voice mail or takes a message, directs the call to a third party, scheduling a meeting or callback on behalf of the particular person) (paragraphs: 0017, 0072); or based on determining that the call forwarding is enabled: connect the external telephony device to a session border controller associated with the call forwarding, the session border controller providing the telephony services for the telephone call (when the call is determined to be from an authorized calling party based on caller identification information or by artificial intelligence conversations with the calling party, the call is directly forwarded to the particular person when the person is available) (paragraphs: 0016, 0057); however, Betitou does not disclose whether call forwarding is enabled by the destination telephony address, wherein the stored setting is associated with an outage condition of at least one of the telephony server or a network connection between the telephony server and a premises associated with the destination telephony address.
In the same field of endeavor, Bennett clearly specifically discloses whether call forwarding is enabled by the destination telephony address, wherein the stored setting is associated with an outage condition of at least one of the telephony server or a network connection between the telephony server and a premises associated with the destination telephony address (Upon failure of bridging termination or local termination of the PSTN call, the PSTN call is bridged to a voice mail handle (when call forward is not enable ) or specified network address associated with the message server 132 (when call forward is enable), or forwarded to a voice mail telephone number associated with the message server 130 using local or PSTN infrastructure forwarding functionality) (paragraphs: 0057 and fig. 1, fig. 10)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to incorporate the teaching of Bennett into teaching of Betitou for the purpose of providing service provider bridge when failure/outage occurs.
Consider claims 3, 11, and 19, Betitou and Bennett clearly show the non-transitory computer readable medium, the apparatus, and the system, the processing circuitry configured to execute the instructions to: enabling the call forwarding based on a request from an administrator device associated with the session border controller (Betitou: paragraphs: 0070, 0090, and 0093).
Consider claim 5, Betitou and Bennett clearly show the system, wherein the session border controller comprises an on-premises telephony node (Betitou: paragraphs: 0011-0014).
Consider claims 8 and 16, Betitou and Bennett clearly show the system and the non-transitory computer readable medium, wherein the telephony services comprise the automated receptionist service, wherein the automated receptionist service enables, in response to an incoming call, playing a greeting and providing a menu for routing the incoming call to a user-selected destination (Betitou: fig. 4; Bennett: paragraphs: 0057 and fig. 10).
Consider claims 13, Betitou and Bennett clearly show the non-transitory computer readable medium, wherein an on-premises telephony node comprises the session border controller (Betitou: fig. 1).
3. Consider claims 2, 10, and 18, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Betitou et al (Pub. No. US 2014/0098183 A1; hereinafter Betitou) in view of Bennett et al (Pub. No. US 2007/0183396 A1; hereinafter Bennett) and further in view of Elsey (Patent No.: US 6,845,155 B2; hereinafter Elsey)
Consider claims 2, 10, and 18, Betitou and Bennett disclose the claimed invention above but lack teaching the processing circuitry configured to execute the instructions to: enable the call forwarding in response to a load of the telephony server exceeding a threshold load; the operations comprising: enabling the call forwarding in response to a load of the telephony server being within a range.
In the same field of endeavor, Elsey clearly discloses the processing circuitry configured to execute the instructions to: enable the call forwarding in response to a load of the telephony server exceeding a threshold load; the operations comprising: enabling the call forwarding in response to a load of the telephony server being within a range (col. 1, lines 65 -66 and col. 2, lines 1-28).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to incorporate the teaching of Elsey into teaching of Betitou and Bennett for the purpose of controlling a flow of communication calls.
4. Consider claims 4, 12, and 20, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Betitou et al (Pub. No. US 2014/0098183 A1; hereinafter Betitou) in view of Bennett et al (Pub. No. US 2007/0183396 A1; hereinafter Bennett) and further in view of Cope (Patent No.: US 7,924,997 B1; hereinafter Cope)
Consider claims 4, 12, and 20, Betitou and Bennett disclose the claimed invention above but lack teaching the processing circuitry configured to execute the instructions to: enable the call forwarding in response to a telephony outage at a premises of the session border controller.
In the same field of endeavor, Cope clearly discloses the processing circuitry configured to execute the instructions to: enable the call forwarding in response to a telephony outage at a premises of the session border controller; enable the call forwarding in response to a network outage (col. 4, lines 57-67).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to incorporate the teaching of Cope into teaching of Betitou and Bennett for the purpose of redirecting calls during network outage.
5. Consider claims 6-7, and 14-15, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Betitou et al (Pub. No. US 2014/0098183 A1; hereinafter Betitou) in view of Bennett et al (Pub. No. US 2007/0183396 A1; hereinafter Bennett) and further in view of Chhabra et al (Pub. No. US 2022/0263947 A1; hereinafter Chhabra)
Consider claims 6-7, and 14-15, Betitou and Chhabra disclose the claimed invention above but lack teaching wherein the telephony services comprise the shared line group service, wherein the shared line group service enables access to a telephone line from multiple computing devices associated with multiple user accounts, wherein an incoming call to a telephone number of the shared line group causes parallel or simultaneous ringing of the multiple computing devices; wherein the telephony services comprise the call queue service, wherein the call queue service enables serially routing an incoming call to multiple user accounts according to a stored call queue data structure.
In the same field of endeavor, Chhabra clearly discloses wherein the telephony services comprise the shared line group service, wherein the shared line group service enables access to a telephone line from multiple computing devices associated with multiple user accounts, wherein an incoming call to a telephone number of the shared line group causes parallel or simultaneous ringing of the multiple computing devices (Chhabra: paragraphs: 0022-0026). .
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to incorporate the teaching of Chhabra into teaching of Betitou and Bennett for the purpose providing an incoming call to a telephone number of the shared line group causes parallel/ serially ringing of the multiple computing devices.
Allowable Subject Matter
6. Claim 21 is 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.
Response to Arguments
The present Office Action is in response to Applicant’s amendment filed on August 19, 2026. Applicant has amended claims 1, 4, 6- 9, 11, and 14-17, and has added new claims 21, claims 1-21 are now pending in the present application.
Applicant's arguments with respect to amended claims have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Amal Zenati whose telephone number is 571-270-1947. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:00 -5:00 M-F.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ahmad Matar can be reached on 571- 272- 7488. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571- 273-8300.
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/AMAL S ZENATI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2693
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