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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 20-39 are presented for examination.
Claims 1-19 are cancelled.
IDS filed on 5/21/25 is considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 27 and 37 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Referring to claims 27 and 37, a broad range or limitation together with a narrow range or limitation that falls within the broad range or limitation (in the same claim) may be considered indefinite if the resulting claim does not clearly set forth the metes and bounds of the patent protection desired. See MPEP § 2173.05(c). In the present instance, claims 27 and 37 recites the broad recitation of creation of insight without the first sampling the stream, and the claims 20 and 30 also recites the creation of insights requiring the sampling which is the narrower statement of the range/limitation. The claim(s) are considered indefinite because there is a question or doubt as to whether the feature introduced by such narrower language is (a) merely exemplary of the remainder of the claim, and therefore not required, or (b) a required feature of the claims.
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 of this title, 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 20-39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Boyle, III et al., US Patent Publication Number 2022/0116265 A1, hereinafter Boyle, in view of Aranya et al., US Patent Number 9,900,360, hereinafter Aranya.
Referring to claims 20, Boyle discloses a method performed by analytics equipment for a communication network (abstract, figure 1, the cross layer analytics system in network 100), the method comprising:
storing a stream of data records from the communication network ([0257], “event data records are stored in a storage device, e.g., a database storage system, data lake system, or a data warehouse...");
exploring the stored stream to identify characteristics of data records (KPIs) to be used for insight creation ([0275][0276], analytics system processes only event data records for dependent protocols; [0277] for each of the different cross-layer KPIs);
based on the identified characteristics, filtering the stored stream to obtain a filtered stream that includes data records with the identified characteristics ([0277][0278], “applies a filter to the first set of event detail records to determine a sub-set of the event detail records to be processed"); and
creating one or more insights about the communication network using the filtered stream ([0284-0288], figure 8D steps 8066-8072, insights are created using the filtered event streams).
Boyle does not explicitly teach sampling the stored stream to obtain a sampled stream that includes fewer data records than the stored stream.
Aranya teaches sampling the stored stream to obtain a sampled stream that includes fewer data records than the stored stream (Col 3, lines 1-21, This solution provides an economical solution by limiting the storage required to store a representative sample of the publisher's streaming data while still preserving the ability to draw meaningful insights from the stored information. Furthermore, queries run on the stored sampled data can execute rapidly and provide fresh insights even as the publisher's data streams in to the distributed system).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate sampling feature of Aranya into Boyle because both Aranya and Boyle discloses using stored event stream to generate insights and Aranya further suggests the insights are generated based on sampled data stream.
A person with ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to Boyke to conserve space and provides an economical solution by limiting the storage required to store a representative sample of the publisher's streaming data while still preserving the ability to draw meaningful insights from the stored information as suggested by Aranya (Col 3, lines 1-21),
Referring to claims 21, Boyle in view of Aranya discloses the method of claim 20, wherein each data record is a record of data from an event in the communication network, and wherein storing the stream of data records comprises receiving records of data from respective events as those events occur and storing the received records of data (Boyle, [0257], the captured event data and/or the generated event data records are stored in a storage device, e.g., a database storage system, data lake system, or a data warehouse. The storage being performed by the network devices, probes, sensors, element management systems, network management systems, and operation support systems which captured the event data and/or generated the event data records).
Referring to claims 22, Boyle in view of Aranya discloses the method of claim 21, wherein sampling the stored stream comprises, for each of one or more types of events in the communication network, sampling data records in the stored stream that are from that type of event at a sampling rate (sampling ratio) defined for the type of event (Aranya, abstract, Col 3, lines 1-21, by enabling each worker in the distributed system to select a sampling ratio based on historical information such as a historical sampling ratio or historical received data item volume… Furthermore, queries run on the stored sampled data can execute rapidly and provide fresh insights even as the publisher's data streams in to the distributed system). The limitation is rejected in the analysis of claim 20 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Referring to claims 23, Boyle in view of Aranya discloses the method of claim 20, wherein each data record in the stored stream is a record of data for a subscriber to the communication network, and wherein sampling the stored stream comprises sampling the stored stream across all subscribers to the communication network (Boyles, [0075][0110][0257]; Aranya, abstract, Col 3 lines 1-21, 45-52, sampling the event data across all users/subscriber to the communication network). The limitation is rejected in the analysis of claim 20 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Referring to claims 24, Boyle in view of Aranya discloses the method of claim 20, wherein filtering the stored stream based on the identified characteristics comprises: generating filtering decision logic configured to separate data records with the identified characteristics from data records without the identified characteristics; and filtering the stored stream according to the filtering decision logic to obtain the filtered stream that includes data records with the identified characteristics and excludes data records without the identified characteristics (Boyle, [0276], “analytics system processes only event data records for dependent protocols indicating a failure abstain from processing event data records for dependent protocols which indicate a success ...”). The limitation is rejected in the analysis of claim 20 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Referring to claims 25, Boyle in view of Aranya discloses the method of claim 20, wherein said exploring comprises exploring the sampled stream to identify that a data record to be used for insight creation is characterized by having one or more certain values for one or more respective data fields in the data record, wherein the identified characteristics are the one or more certain values for the one or more respective data fields ([0275-0277] count, stored event/sampled data and KPI are used for insight creation characterized by having one or more certain values for one or more respective data fields in the data record, wherein the identified characteristics are the one or more certain values for the one or more respective data fields). The limitation is rejected in the analysis of claim 20 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Referring to claims 26, Boyle in view of Aranya discloses the method of claim 25, wherein the one or more respective data fields include: a subscriber field indicating an identity or type of a subscriber; and/or a device field indicating an identity or type of a communication device; and/or a cell field indicating an identity or type of a cell ([0110][0210], subscriber IDs). The limitation is rejected in the analysis of claim 20 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Referring to claims 27, Boyle in view of Aranya discloses the method of claim 20, wherein filtering the stored stream comprises retrieving the stored stream from storage of the analytics equipment and filtering the retrieved stream based on the identified characteristics without first sampling the retrieved stream, and wherein creating the one or more insights about the communication network using the filtered stream comprises creating the one or more insights about the communication network using the filtered stream without first sampling the filtered stream (see rejection to claim 21 prior to combining with Aranya, Boyle is disclosing a method to create insight without sampling the retrieved stream data; [0257][0275-0278][0284-0288]). The limitation is rejected in the analysis of claim 20 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Referring to claims 28, Boyle in view of Aranya discloses the method of claim 20, wherein said storing, sampling, exploring, filtering, and creating is performed iteratively over multiple iterations, and wherein the method further comprises: determining a reliability of the one or more insights created using the filtered stream in a certain iteration; and adapting a rate at which the stored stream is to be sampled in a subsequent iteration, based on the determined reliability (figure 2, selected ratio is updated for future use)(Col 3 lines 1-6, select a sampling ratio based on historical information such as a historical sampling ratio or historical received data item volume, each worker can independently respond to spiky traffic patterns by keeping more (or less) of the publisher's streaming data). The limitation is rejected in the analysis of claim 20 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Referring to claims 29, Boyle in view of Aranya discloses the method of claim 20, wherein the one or more insights include an insight into a problem in the communication network, and wherein the method further comprises providing the insight into the problem to remediation equipment configured to remediate the problem using the insight into the problem (Boyle, [0006-0008], determining failures causes and troubleshooting). The limitation is rejected in the analysis of claim 20 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Referring to claims 30-39, the claims encompass the same scope of the invention as that of the claims 20-29. Therefore, claims 30-39 are rejected on the same ground as the claims 20-29.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Applicant is reminded that in amending in response to a rejection of claims, the patentable novelty must be clearly shown in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited and the objection made. Applicant must show how the amendments avoid such references and objections. See 37 CFR 1.111(c).
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Liang-che Alex Wang
July 13, 2026
/LIANG CHE A WANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2447
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