Ex Parte Battista et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 24, 2019

15017598 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 24, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 15/017,598 02/06/2016 118311 7590 Toering Patents PLLC P.O. Box 1419 Leesburg, VA 20177 01/28/2019 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Rich Battista 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. SlOl 0110.4 2843 EXAMINER REDDIV ALAM, SRINIV ASAR ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2477 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/28/2019 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): rick@toeringpatents.com admin@toeringpatents.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte RICH BATTISTA, JOHN W. BROSIUS, and UDAYSHANKAR Appeal 2018-004680 Application 15/017 ,598 Technology Center 2400 Before: ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, LARRY J. HUME, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from a rejection of claims 13-28, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. Claims 1-12 have been cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b ). We affirm. Appeal 2018-004680 Application 15/017,598 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to system and method for mobile terminal initiated communications. Claim 13, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 13. A method performed by a mobile terminal, comprising: awakening, by the mobile terminal, from a sleep mode; analyzing activity on a communication timeslot that is assigned to mobile terminals and on a communication timeslot that is not assigned to mobile terminals; identifying, based on the analyzing, either the communication timeslot that is assigned to mobile terminals or the communication timeslot that is not assigned to mobile terminals as a usable communication timeslot; and transmitting a report based on the identified usable communication timeslot. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Hladik US 2003/0043761 Al Mar. 6, 2003 REJECTIONS Claims 13-28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C Â§I03(a) as being unpatentable over Hladik. OPINION Appellants argue that Hladik fails to teach or suggest at least the feature of: "analyzing activity on a communication timeslot that is assigned to mobile terminals and on a communication timeslot that is not assigned to mobile terminals," as recited in claim 13. In particular, Appellants first argue that as described in Hladik (para. 25), the scheduled time slots are 2 Appeal 2018-004680 Application 15/017,598 assigned to tracking units and used for regularly scheduled reports and as further described in Hladik (para.26), the RA time slots may be used by tracking units to respond to unscheduled report requests. App. Br. 7. According to Appellants, the scheduled time slots are each assigned to a particular mobile terminal and the RA time slots are assigned to mobile terminals generally. Id. Appellants further argue that Hladik (para. 42) indicates that the hub assigns an RA time slot to the tracking unit, and thus, both the scheduled time slots and the RA time slots are assigned to tracking units. App. Br. 8. We do not agree with Appellants' argument. The Examiner finds, and we agree, that Hladik (Fig.4, para. 25) teaches both scheduled time slots (SCHED. SLOTS) that are assigned to the tracking units by the network control terminal and random access (RA) time slots and also teaches that the assigned slots are used by the tracking units to report position and sensor to information. Ans. 15-16. The Examiner further finds, and we agree, that Hladik (para. 26) teaches the return channel random access (RA) slots are used by the tracking units to log into the asset tracking SATCOM network, report high priority sensor messages in a timely fashion, respond to unscheduled report requests, and respond to commands that are issued at times other than the assigned forward channel slot. Ans. 16. Thus, we also agree with the Examiner that as per the Broadest Reasonable Interpretation of claim limitations, the above teaching of Hladik i.e., the mobile tracking units using both the scheduled time slots (SCHED. SLOTS), that are assigned to the mobile tracking units to report position and sensor to information and the return channel random access (RA) slots that are not assigned to the mobile tracking units to respond to unscheduled report 3 Appeal 2018-004680 Application 15/017,598 requests. Ans. 16. We agree with the Examiner that this is equivalent to having the feature of: analyzing activity on a communication timeslot that is assigned to mobile terminals and on a communication timeslot that is not assigned to mobile terminals, as both scheduled/assigned and unscheduled (RA)/unassigned time slots being analyzed/used by the mobile terminal to report the above mentioned functions. Ans. 16. We further agree with the Examiner that Hladik (para. 42) also teaches that a second alternative is to reserve some slots by the hub in the return channel specifically for the transmission of unscheduled reports and these reserved slots are not yet particularly assigned to any particular tacking unit. Ans. 17. Thus, these not particularly assigned slots are still unscheduled (RA)/unassigned time slots which are used by the tracking units to respond to unscheduled report requests as mentioned by Hladik in paragraph 26. Id. Thus, Hladik teaches that the mobile terminals "analyze activity ... on a communication timeslot that is not assigned to mobile terminals " as recited in claim 13. Id. Thus, we affirm the Examiner's rejection of claim 13 and, for the same reasons, the Examiner's rejections of claims 14--28 not argued separately. DECISION We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 13-28. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv). See 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.50(Â±). AFFIRMED 4