Ex Parte Aiba et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 30, 2017

13641933 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 30, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O.Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 13/641,933 10/18/2012 Tatsushi Aiba 1248-1359PUS1 2106 2292 7590 09/01/2017 BIRCH STEWART KOLASCH & BIRCH, LLP 8110 Gatehouse Road Suite 100 East FALLS CHURCH, VA 22042-1248 EXAMINER MERED, HABTE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2474 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/01/2017 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): mailroom @ bskb. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte TATSUSHI AIBA, LEI HUANG, and SHOICHI SUZUKI Appeal 2017-005005 Application 13/641,933 Technology Center 2400 Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, LARRY J. HUME, and JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges. COURTENAY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 23—34. Claims 1—22 are cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Appeal 2017-005005 Application 13/641,933 The Invention Appellants’ claimed invention relates to a “communication technique, and particularly, to a communication method and system for PUCCH (physical uplink control channel) resource assignment, a base station, a user equipment and integrated circuits used therein.” Spec. 11. Illustrative Claim 23. A base station apparatus which is configured to communicate with a user equipment on a plurality of downlink component carriers and a first uplink component carrier, the plurality of downlink component carriers including a first downlink component carrier and a plurality of second downlink component carriers, the base station apparatus comprising: [LI] a transmitting unit configured to transmit, to the user equipment, a higher layer signal including four values of four physical uplink control channel resources, the four values being among integer values and respectively indicating the physical uplink control channel resources configurable on the first uplink component carrier; [L2] a scheduling circuitry configured to indicate, based on a value of a field of a transmission power control command for a physical uplink control channel, to the user equipment, a single value of a physical uplink control channel resource, the single value of the physical uplink control channel resource being among the four values of the four physical uplink control channel resources; and [L3] a receiving unit configured to receive, from the user equipment, Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) control information using a physical uplink control channel resource corresponding to the indicated single value of the physical uplink control channel resource, wherein 2 Appeal 2017-005005 Application 13/641,933 the same single value of the physical uplink control channel resource is indicated, among the four values of the four physical uplink control channel resources, by the value of the field of the transmission power control command for the physical uplink control channel included in each downlink control information format in a sub-frame, the each downlink control information format being used for scheduling of a physical downlink shared channel transmission on the second downlink component carrier. (Bracketed, lettered limitations are contested, and dispositive contested limitation L2 is emphasized in bold.) Rejection Claims 23—34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over the combined teachings and suggestions of Papasakellariou et al. (US 2014/0153492 Al; publ. June 5, 2014) (hereinafter “Papas I” which claims the benefit of provisional application 61/319,524) and Papasakellariou et al. (US 2011/0165906 Al; publ. July 7, 2011) (hereinafter “Papas II” which claims the benefit of provisional application 61/293,008). ANALYSIS Independent Claim 23 Appellants contest the recited limitation L2 (“a single value of a physical uplink control channel resource, the single value of the physical uplink control channel resource being among the four values of the four physical uplink control channel resources”) in the Appeal Brief (12—14), and also in the Reply Brief (6—9), pointing out that the cited sections of the Papas references do not disclose this limitation of apparatus claim 1. Appellants argue “[sjince Papas I and Papas II do not disclose indication or determination of a single resource from among a plurality of resources, they 3 Appeal 2017-005005 Application 13/641,933 do not anticipate or make obvious the corresponding features of independent claims 23, 26, 29, and 32.” (App. Br. 15). Appellants additionally argue Papas I’s offset values in Table 3 are “used to indicate the quantity and direction of offset (i.e.,+/- one or a plurality) of each ‘resource for the HARQ-ACK signal transmission in response to PDSCH reception in’ respective DL CC(s). (Papas Provisional '524, p. 7, first full paragraph.) The Offset Values do not identify four respective PUCCH resources, one of which is to be selected by the UE.” (Reply Br. 6). In rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), we agree with Appellants the Examiner cites to Papas I and Papas II without providing a clear mapping of the contested limitation “a single value of a physical uplink control channel resource.” (Final Act. 4—5). The Examiner clarifies his findings in the Answer: [T]he DL SA containing a specific 2 bit HRI IE assignment is definitely a lower layer signaling. However, once the user equipment receives that 2 bit assignment it has to decode it to an integer value of either -1 or 0 or 1 or 2. Hence if the user equipment received a two bit value of "01", how would the user equipment know it means an offset of -1 or "10" means an[] offset of 1 or "11" means an offset of 2? The only way the user equipment can successfully decode the received HRI IE 2 bit[] values is if it has received the table 3 manning ahead of time as part of the HARQ-ACK resources which were transmitted via higher layer signaling (See Papas I (61 /319524) line 17 on page 9, 2nd paragraph lines 2-4 on page 6, and last line on page 10. (Ans. 5—6). The Examiner attempts to buttress his findings with the Papas II reference which describes: “HARQ-ACK1 resource offsets carried either in 1 “HARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest)-ACK (ACKnowledge).” Spec. 2,11. 14—15. 4 Appeal 2017-005005 Application 13/641,933 HRI IE2 or TPC IE [(“Transmission Power Control Information Element)”] is configured by higher layer signaling such as RRC3 as shown in the headings of Figs. 11 and 12 and the description of Figs. 11 and 12 on page 9.” (Ans. 8). However, after further reviewing the record, our view is unchanged that the Examiner does not provide a clear mapping of the contested L2 limitation (“a single value of a physical uplink control channel resource, the single value of the physical uplink control channel resource being among the four values of the four physical uplink control channel resources”) to the corresponding specific feature in the reference(s), in the Final Rejection, or in the Answer. (Final Act. 4—9, Ans. 4—20). Because the Examiner has not fully developed the record to establish how Papas I and Papas II teach or suggest the disputed limitation, we find speculation would be required to affirm the Examiner on this record. We decline to engage in speculation. “A rejection . . . must rest on a factual basis . . . .” In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017 (CCPA 1967). “The Patent Office has the initial duty of supplying the factual basis for its rejection. It may not. . . resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in its factual basis.” Id. (emphasis added). 2 Provisional application 61/293,008 of Papas II denotes the IE (Information Element) used for HARQ-ACK Resource Indexing as “HRI IE.” (See page 8, third paragraph). 3 RRC — “Radio Resource Control signaling . . . The RRC signaling is the signaling exchanged between the base station and the UE [(User Equipment)] on higher-layer (RRC-layer).” Spec. 15,11.1—3. 5 Appeal 2017-005005 Application 13/641,933 Therefore, on this record, we find a preponderance of the evidence supports Appellants’ contention (App. Br. 21) the Examiner has not identified a teaching or suggestion of “a single value of a physical uplink control channel resource, the single value of the physical uplink control channel resource being among the four values of the four physical uplink control channel resources,” as recited in independent claim 23. (Contested limitation L2). Accordingly, we are constrained on this record to reverse the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 23 over Papas I and II, and we reverse the same rejection of independent claims 26, 29, and 32, which each recite the disputed L2 limitation of claim 23 using similar, commensurate language. Because we have reversed the rejection of each independent claim on appeal, we also reverse the obviousness rejection of each dependent claim. DECISION We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 23—34 under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). REVERSED 6