1. The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
2. The rejection of claims 31-50 under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to judicial exception without significant more, mailed 26 February 2026, is hereby incorporated by reference.
3. The rejection of claims 31-34 and 42-44 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being clearly anticipated by Jain, U.S. pat. No. 9,628,359, mailed 26 February 2026, is hereby incorporated by reference.
4. The rejection of claims 35-41 and 45-50 under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jain, mailed 26 February 2026, is hereby incorporated by reference.
Response to Amendment
5. Applicant's arguments filed on May 26, 2026 with respect to claims 31-50 have been fully considered but are not deemed persuasive.
Per 101 rejection of claims 31-50, applicant alleges that the claims have not been evaluated under steps 2A and 2B of the process set forth in MPEP 2106. Examiner respectfully disagrees.
The office action has found that current claims are directed to an abstract idea or a metal process that can be performed in human mind or by a human using pen and paper, which is a judicial exception (step 2A, first prong). Additionally, the claims are not positively tied to a particular machine to perform the claimed method (step 2A, second prong). In particular, the step of “determining a plurality of performance metrics” is not positively cited to be performed by a machine. Hence, the step could be simply performed by a human, i.e., by reading data from a report.
Moreover, the office action has found that the claims do not include additional element that are sufficient to amount to significant more than the judicial exception (step 2B).
Applicant alleges that the claims improve a technology, i.e., improvement in handling QoS metrics that enables network service performance to be monitored and tuned. Examiner is however unable to find the alleged limitation in the present claims.
Per 102 rejection of claims 31-34 and 42-44, applicant alleges that Jain does not disclose the claimed invention because Jain fails to teach “determining when the QoS metric for the first coordinate does not meet a QoS requirement”. Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Jain clearly teaches obtaining QoS metric for a coordinate, e.g., signal strength of access point at a location, and determining whether the obtained QoS metric meets a QoS requirement, i.e., signal strength is above 90% among the collected signals or top 5% (see col 10, ln 50-67). In other words, an access point with signal strength below top 5% does not meet the QoS requirement. Jain also teaches that the QoS requirement, i.e., signal strength, would have been set as threshold value rather than a percentage (see col 11, ln 3-14).
Per 103 rejection of claim 35, applicant alleges that Jain does not teach calculating a performance quality metric for the first coordinate (col 5, ln 56-67). Examiner disagrees.
Jain teaches calculating a performance quality metric for the first coordinate, e.g., first location, by first removing performing metrics collected from client device determined too far from the location (see col 5, ln 56-62). This step clearly comprises a computing function, i.e., to comparing signal strength or distance, to determine whether a device is too far from the location. Jain then teaches performing a transformation function to build a database of summarized performance parameters from raw data collected from client devices (see col 5, ln 62-67). Thus, Examiner submits that Jain discloses the alleged limitation of claim 35.
Per 103 rejection of claim 37, applicant alleges that Jain does not teach a particular QoS metric for a given coordinate is associated with a number of times that a performance metric did not meet a threshold for performance or with a duration when the performance metric did not meet a threshold for performance. Examiner disagrees.
Jain teaches that performance quality metric for the first coordinate is associated with a threshold, i.e., minimum number of data points to be captured to provide statistically relevant representation of the historic performance of the data network, and when the performance metric did not meet this threshold, data capture for next period would be adjusted to capture more or less data, wherein data captured in recent period may carry more weight than previous period (see col 6, ln 25-44). In other words, the QoS metric calculated based on captured data is associated with number of periods or a period duration when the threshold was satisfied and/or not satisfied.
Conclusion
6. THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 C.F.R. 1.136(a).
A SHORTENED STATUTORY PERIOD FOR RESPONSE TO THIS FINAL ACTION IS SET TO EXPIRE THREE MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THIS ACTION. IN THE EVENT A FIRST RESPONSE 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 C.F.R. § 1.136(a) WILL BE CALCULATED FROM THE MAILING DATE OF THE ADVISORY ACTION. IN NO EVENT WILL THE STATUTORY PERIOD FOR RESPONSE EXPIRE LATER THAN SIX MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THIS FINAL ACTION.
7. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Viet Vu whose telephone number is 571-272-3977. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Thursday from 8:00am to 6:00pm. The Group general information number is 571-272-2400. The Group fax number is 571-273-8300.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Emmanuel Moise, can be reached at 571-272-3865.
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/Viet D Vu/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2455
7/13/26
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