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
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, 6-7, 12, 17-18, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being unpatentable by Sterman (US 20130170364).
Regarding claim 1, Sterman teaches a method (abstract) comprising:
receiving, at one or more processing devices (Fig. 1, 120) , information indicative of termination of a first voice call over a wireless network, the termination being initiated by one of multiple participants of the first voice call (Paragraph 37: a mobile telephony device might report multiple measurements taken during the duration of a VOIP telephone call only after the call has been terminated and Paragraph 55: 55] In step S412 a check is performed to determine if the call has been terminated by either party);
obtaining, by the one or more processing devices, time series data indicative of one or more metrics over a first time period preceding a time point at which the termination of the first voice call is initiated, the one or more metrics indicative of call quality of the first voice call; (Paragraph Fig.4, 402, Paragraph 51: when call quality metrics information is periodically recorded during a call. the call quality information could relate to any one of multiple conditions that are being experienced by a mobile telephony device during a VOIP telephone call. A single measurement of a particular condition might be obtained. Alternatively, multiple measurements of the same condition could be taken periodically as a call proceeds),
determining, based on the time series data, that the termination of the first voice call is attributable to a call quality issue (Paragraph 37: the user may be able to push a button on the phone each time he or she feels that call quality during the call is below an acceptable level. At block 424 the call is terminated. For example, the user may have hung up the device to end the call, or the call may have been dropped due to inadequate service. At block 425 the quality monitoring system performs exploratory and/or automated data analysis based on the information collected at block 423. Some of this analysis may also occur while the call is in progress); and
responsive to determining that the termination of the first voice call is attributable to a call-quality issue, generating one or more signals configured to initiate a remedial measure to address the call quality issue (Paragraph 54: a decision is made, using the results of the analysis step, to determine if it is possible to act to improve call quality on an individual device, or on a class of mobile telephony devices. If so, the method proceeds to step S410, and the desired action is taken. As explained above, this could include informing a user about how to act to improve call quality on his mobile telephony device. This step could also include proactively making a change to the user's mobile telephony device or to the IP telephony system 120 to improve call quality).
Regarding claim 6, Sterman teaches, wherein the one or more metrics indicative of call quality of the first voice call comprises information indicative of a packet loss rate and a jitter value (Paragraph 2).
Regarding claim 7, Sterman teaches, wherein the one or more metrics indicative of call quality of the first voice call comprises information indicative of at least one of: a signal-to-interference-plus- noise ratio (SINR) or a reference signal received power (RSRP) (Paragraph 29 “reads on noise level”).
Regarding claim 12, see claim 1 rejection.
Regarding claim 17, see claim 6 rejections.
Regarding claim 18, see claim 7 rejections.
Regarding claim 20, see claim 1 rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 2, 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sterman (US 20130170364) in view of Krinsky (US 20130165085).
Regarding claim 2, Sterman teaches, wherein determining that the termination of the first voice call is attributable to a call quality issue (Paragraph 37).
Sterman does not teach obtaining, by the one or more processing devices, information indicative of an attempt by one of the multiple participants to initiate a second voice call with another of the multiple participants; and determining that the time series data indicates a degradation of the call quality during the first time period.
Krinsky in the same art of endeavor teach (abstract: call quality monitoring system allows a user of a mobile device to report on call quality or otherwise provide information relating to the quality of a wireless communication experience. The call quality monitoring system may allow the mobile device user to establish or accept a call placed on the wireless communication network. The call quality monitoring system may provide at least partially-automated user-feedback process for the user to specify information about the quality of the call from a device from which the call was placed or from a device located at or near a location of the call. The call quality monitoring system may collect information provided by the user in association with specifying information about the quality of the call), obtaining, by the one or more processing devices, information indicative of an attempt by one of the multiple participants to initiate a second voice call with another of the multiple participants; and determining that the time series data indicates a degradation of the call quality during the first time period (claim 1: while the first voice call between the wireless mobile device and the first device is in progress, the call quality information collected via the user interface application, wherein analysis of the call quality information occurs at the second device while the first voice call between the wireless mobile device and the first device is in progress; and upon termination of the first voice call, automatically initiating, by the wireless mobile device, a second voice call with the second device).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Sterman with Krinsky in order to improve the system and ensure continuous service which increase reliability.
Regarding claim 13, see claim 2 rejections.
Claims 3, 14 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sterman (US 20130170364) in view of Ireland (US 10244104).
Regarding claim 3, Sterman teaches, wherein determining that the termination of the first voice call is attributable to a call quality issue (Paragraph 37).
Sterman does not teach providing the time series data to a machine learning model trained to identify a cause for call termination based on the one or more metrics; and determining, based on an output of the machine learning model, that the termination of the first voice call is attributable to a call quality issue.
Ireland in the same art of endeavor teaches providing the time series data to a machine learning model trained to identify a cause for call termination based on the one or more metrics; and determining, based on an output of the machine learning model, that the termination of the first voice call is attributable to a call quality issue (Col. 6, lines 29-38: Once the model is trained, it can be incorporated into the inference engine 220. In an example, several models can be incorporated into the inference engine. These finished models can then be used in a phrase detector that accepts the audio sample 215 as input. In an example, for each audio sample 215, the inference engine 220 can run a last n second through the trained model(s) where matches are identified and the last n seconds of the audio sample 215 are cached. In an example, n is the time of the longest trained phrase.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Sterman with Ireland in order to improve the system and increase reliability.
Regarding claim 14, see claim 3 rejections.
Claims 4, 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sterman (US 20130170364) in view of Park (US 20240297834).
Regarding claim 4, Sterman teaches wherein the one or more metrics indicative of call quality of the first voice call comprises information indicative of an audio gap detected during the first voice call (Paragraph 2: packet loss).
Sterman does not teaches information indicative of an audio gap detected during the first voice call exceeding a threshold period of time.
Park teaches information indicative of an audio gap detected during the first voice call exceeding a threshold period of time (col. 20: he actions further include: in response to the packet loss rate being equal to or greater than a first threshold, determining whether the voice quality level meets a criterion; in response to the voice activity level being equal to or greater than a second threshold, determining that the user perception of the voice call is impacted).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Sterman with Park in order to improve the system and increase reliability and quality of call.
Regarding claim 15, see claim 4 rejections.
Claims 5, 16 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sterman (US 20130170364) in view of Chari (US 20240120027).
Regarding claim 5, Sterman teaches, the claimed method.
Sterman does not teach wherein the one or more metrics indicative of call quality of the first voice call comprises information indicative of a quantified quality score being less than a threshold value during the first voice call.
Chari teaches the one or more metrics indicative of call quality of the first voice call comprises information indicative of a quantified quality score being less than a threshold value during the first voice call (Paragraph 126: call quality score. Specifically, the call refinement system 106 can identify base calls that fail to satisfy a threshold base call quality score (e.g., a Q score or a QUAL score of 20, 30, 35, or 40)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Sterman with Chari in order to improve the system and increase reliability and quality of call.
Regarding claim 16, see claim 5 rejections.
Claims 8, 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sterman (US 20130170364) in view of McGregor (US 20040058652).
Regarding claim 8, Sterman teaches, the claimed method.
Sterman does not teach wherein the one or more metrics indicative of call quality of the first voice call comprises information indicative of at least one of: a block error rate (BLER) or a bit error rate (BER).
McGregor teaches one or more metrics indicative of call quality of the first voice call comprises information indicative of at least one of: a block error rate (BLER) or a bit error rate (BER) (Paragraph 160-161).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Sterman with McGregor in order to improve the system and increase reliability and provide best call quality.
Regarding claim 19, see claim 8 rejections.
Claim 9 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sterman (US 20130170364) in view of Mittal (US 20090215438).
Regarding claim 9, Sterman teaches, generating the one or more signals configured to initiate the remedial measure to address the call-quality issue (Paragraph 54).
Sterman does not teach generating a signal to instruct a user device identified as experiencing a call quality issue to switch to an available roaming network.
Mittal teaches generating a signal to instruct a user device identified as experiencing a call quality issue to switch to an available roaming network (Paragraph 189: When a wireless client authenticates using 802.1X, there are a series of messages sent between the wireless client and the wireless access point (AP) to exchange credentials. This message exchange introduces a delay in the connection process. When a wireless client roams from one wireless AP to another, the delay to perform 802.1X authentication can cause noticeable interruptions in network connectivity, especially for time-dependent traffic such as voice or video-based data streams. To minimize the delay associated with roaming to another wireless AP, and Paragraph 198: he decision to handoff the call is made by the client. The decision is based on 802.11 signal-strength, channel loading and voice-quality thresholds).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Sterman with Mittal r in order to improve the system and enhance the call quality.
Claim 10 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sterman (US 20130170364) in view of OKvist (US 20200404555).
Regarding claim 10, Sterman teaches, generating the one or more signals configured to initiate the remedial measure to address the call-quality issue (Paragraph 54).
Sterman does not teach wherein generating the one or more signals configured to initiate the remedial measure to address the call-quality issue comprises generating a signal to instruct one or more user equipment to accelerate idle mode resection.
OKvist teaches generating the one or more signals configured to initiate the remedial measure to address the call-quality issue comprises generating a signal to instruct one or more user equipment to accelerate idle mode resection (Paragraph 66: The communication being indicated in FIG. 1 is here shown in the form of radio link quality measurements or radio link quality determinations being exemplified by Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ). Paragraph 140: cell reselection or the performing of signal quality measurements. Cell reselection as well as link quality determinations may thus be performed based on the determined neighbour cells. It is more particularly possible that idle mode cell resection is only allowed to be made to cells in the set to which handover is allowed).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Sterman with OKvist in order to improve the system and enhance the call quality.
Claim 11 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sterman (US 20130170364) in view of Horvitz (US 20160380820).
Regarding claim 11, Sterman teaches, initiate the remedial measure to address the call-quality issue (Paragraph 54).
Sterman does not teach generating a signal to offload user equipment that have a signal quality below a threshold quality value.
Horvitz teaches generating a signal to offload user equipment that have a signal quality below a threshold quality value (Paragraph 98: determining whether to offload the user device from the network comprises determining whether the offload network meets a threshold level of quality, the threshold level of quality based at least upon a signal strength of the offload network).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Sterman with Horvitz in order to improve the system and enhance the network performance.
During search, examiner found other related arts that could read on the claimed invention:
Vuppaladhadiam (US 11196870) teaches (abstract: methods for communications are disclosed. The systems and methods can monitor a cloud-based voice over internet protocol (VoIP) calling system to determine an active call. The systems and methods can also analyze the active call to determine an indication of call quality, the analyzing occurring during the active call. Additionally, the systems and methods can compare the indication of call quality to a quality threshold. The compare can occur during the active call to determine when the active call has a poor call quality. The systems and methods can also report the poor call quality based on the comparing the indication of call quality to the quality threshold).
Mutya (US 20140274006) teaches (abstract: methods use the capabilities of multiple SIMs to prevent calls from being dropped on a multi-SIM wireless device. In the various embodiments, network conditions may be monitored for signal quality during an active call. When signal quality on the network deteriorates, the multi-SIM wireless device may switch the active call to a network associated with a different SIM that provides better service. To enable the switch, the multi-SIM wireless device may setup a conference call with the called party and the different SIM. In the various embodiments, the multi-SIM wireless devices may be a dual-SIM dual active (DSDA) wireless device).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARIA EL-ZOOBI whose telephone number is (571)270-3434. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7-4.
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/MARIA EL-ZOOBI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2692
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