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 § 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 an abstract idea without significantly more. Claims 1, 10, 19 recite “collecting .. data”, “classifying .. the data”, “identifying .. an amount of traffic”, “determining .. a .. metric”, “evaluating .. focus areas”, which could be steps done as a mental process or with a pencil and paper. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claims are directed to an abstract idea with additional generic computer elements. The generically recited computer elements do not add a meaningful limitation to the abstract idea because they amount to simply implementing the abstract idea on a computer. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the claimed “controller” is used to classify and identify, which are well-understood, routine, conventional computer functions.
Claims 2-9, 11-18, 20 recite additional concepts that further describe a source node and the 5G SA focus areas. These dependent claims are also not integrated into a practical application and do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
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.
Claims 1-2, 6-11, 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou et al. (CN 114040433 B where an English machine translation has been attached herewith) in view of Kragten et al. (PG Pub US 2023/0180131 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 10, 19, Zhou discloses a method, a system, and one or more non-transitory computer-readable media.
one or more processors (“processor”); and one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors (“computer program”):
collecting, by a controller within a wireless communication network from at least one source within the wireless communication network, data related to total traffic within the wireless communication network (“the electronic device determines the 5 G traffic resident ratio of the core network” S401, “The service flow resident ratio of the 5G user in the SA network is the ratio of the service flow of the 5G user in the SA network to the total service flow of the 5G user”, “The total traffic of the 5G user includes traffic of the 5G user in a plurality of types of networks. Multiple types of networks include SA networks, NSA networks, and other types of networks. The service total traffic of the 5G user is the sum of the service traffic in the service bills of the plurality of types of networks”);
classifying, by the controller, the data based on radio access technology (RAT) type (“The above other types of networks include at least one of a 4G network, a 3G network, a 2G network, and the like, which are different from the network standard of the 5G network”, “obtaining the service bill of the 5G user from the service bill server, and reading the field of the service bill of the 5G user for representing the network type and the service flow”, “the value of the RATType field is 1, 6, 9”);
based at least in part on the RAT type, identifying, by the controller, an amount of traffic of the total traffic attributable to fifth generation (5G) stand-alone (SA) RAT type (“the value of the RATType field is 1, 6, 9, and takes the sum of the values of the TOTAL TRAFF field in the selected service ticket as the service traffic of the 5G user except the SA network”);
determining, by the controller, a 5G SA utilization metric, wherein determining the 5G SA utilization metric comprises dividing the total traffic by the amount of traffic attributable to the 5G SA RAT type (“The service flow resident ratio of the 5G user in the SA network is the ratio of the service flow of the 5G user in the SA network to the total service flow of the 5G user”); and
based at least in part on the 5G SA utilization metric, evaluating one or more 5G SA focus areas (“determining the resident ratio of the 5G user provided by the embodiment of the present application can count the resident ratio of the 5G service flow based on the core network data, so as to more accurately reflect the use condition of the service flow of the 5G network”, “the electronic device takes the difference between the fast return time of each 5G user and the voice service initiating time of each 5G user as the time length of the voice service of each 5G user falling back to the 4G network. and taking the sum of the time lengths of each 5G user voice service fallback 4G network as the time length of the 5G user voice service fallback 4G network in the SA network, i.e., the second time length”).
However, Zhou does not explicitly disclose total traffic within the wireless communication network and an amount of traffic of the total traffic attributable to fifth generation (5G) stand-alone (SA) RAT type.
Nevertheless, Kragten discloses “when in the dual-connectivity mode the RAT control stack 332 monitors the total downlink data rate obtained by both the 4G LTE RAT 112-2 and the 5G RAT 112-1 and if the total downlink data rate is less than the scaled average downlink data rate Tdl′ over a specified sliding window (e.g., 200 ms), then the RAT control stack 332 disables the 5G RAT 112-1. Conversely, when in an LTE-only mode, the RAT control stack 332 monitors the LTE downlink throughput and if this throughput is higher than a threshold B*Tdl′ (where B is a constant between, for example, 0.5 and 1.0) over a specified sliding window, then the RAT control stack 332 enables the 5G RAT 112-1” [0052], “enables the 5G RAT 112-1 (or maintains the 5G RAT 112-1 in an enabled state) so that the UE has sufficient uplink capacity to clear the uplink buffer” [0039].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have total traffic within the wireless communication network and an amount of traffic of the total traffic attributable to fifth generation (5G) stand-alone (SA) RAT type because it will “provide for efficient opportunistic enabling or disabling of a RAT or dynamic reconfiguration of a RAT so as to provide sufficient uplink and downlink throughput for supported software applications while reducing unnecessary power consumption by the UE, which often is battery powered” [0018].
Regarding claims 2, 11, 20, Zhou, Kragten discloses everything claimed as applied above. Further, Kragten discloses the at least one source comprises one or more of (i) a packet data network gateway (PGW) of the wireless communication network or (ii) a user plane function (UPF) of the wireless communication network (“a gateway” [0025], “user plane operations” [0053]).
Regarding claims 6, 15, Zhou, Kragten discloses everything claimed as applied above. In addition, Zhou discloses the one or more 5G SA focus areas comprise mobile device design (“The wearable device also can be called wearable intelligent device, which is used for intelligently designing the daily wearing by the wearable technology and developing the general name of the wearable device”).
Regarding claims 7, 16, Zhou, Kragten discloses everything claimed as applied above. In addition, Zhou discloses the one or more 5G SA focus areas comprise 5G SA deployment within the wireless communication network (“accurately calculating the 5G resident ratio is absent in the scene where the SA network and the NSA network are converged and deployed”).
Regarding claims 8, 17, Zhou, Kragten discloses everything claimed as applied above. Further, Kragten discloses the one or more 5G SA focus areas comprise identifying one or more network inefficiencies or one or more mobile device inefficiencies (“ineffective selection between RATs available to support an access service for one or more software applications of a UE, or the ineffective configuration of a given RAT at the UE, can lead to one or both of unnecessary power consumption or insufficient data throughput” [0001]).
Regarding claims 9, 18, Zhou, Kragten discloses everything claimed as applied above. Further, Kragten discloses the one or more 5G SA focus areas comprise guiding targeted upgrade strategies within the wireless communication network (“the UE 102 may be configured to perform software updates within a certain time window any given day, and the RAT control stack 332 observes this behavior to predict a similar downlink requirement for the next time window” [0043]).
Claims 3-4, 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou, Kragten further in view of Sarath et al. (PG Pub US 2026/0081864 A1).
Regarding claims 3, 12, Zhou, Kragten discloses everything claimed as applied above. However, Zhou, Kragten does not explicitly disclose the one or more 5G SA focus areas comprise optimization of national 5G SA utilization.
Nevertheless, Sarath discloses “collects data from pertinent network infrastructure relevant to a customer's services, including user equipment (device), network functions, network operations and administration, cloud, and edge” [0040], “one cloud computing region may have its datacenters and hardware located in the northeast of the United States” [0024].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to optimize utilization because “It is a unique standalone 5G network function that exposes full visibility to network performance and operations as they relate to a customer's key performance indicators (KPIs)” [0040].
Regarding claims 4, 13, Zhou, Kragten discloses everything claimed as applied above. Further, Sarath discloses the one or more 5G SA focus areas comprise mobile device vendor 5G SA utilization (“collects data from pertinent network infrastructure relevant to a customer's services, including user equipment (device), network functions, network operations and administration, cloud, and edge” [0040], “policy/charging capabilities” [0031]).
Claims 5, 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhou, Kragten in view of Cho et al. (PG Pub US 2026/0106815 A1).
Regarding claims 5, 14, Zhou, Kragten discloses everything claimed as applied above. However, Zhou, Kragten does not explicitly disclose the one or more 5G SA focus areas comprise mobile device operating system (OS) 5G SA utilization.
Nevertheless, Cho discloses “Different device types may be assigned different sets of UE KPIs. For example, a mobile broadband UE device 110 with an Android® operating system may be assigned a first set of UE KPIs, a mobile broadband UE device 110 with an iOS® operating system may be assigned a second set of UE KPIs, a FWA device may be assigned a third set of UE KPIs, etc” [0048].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to optimize utilization because “Device type classifier 330 may select a set of KPIs for a device type” [0048].
Conclusion
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CHRISTINE DUONG FUQUA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2462
/CHRISTINE T DUONG/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462 08/06/2026
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