Ex Parte Cheng et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 17, 201813920764 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 17, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/920,764 06/18/2013 74365 7590 04/19/2018 Slater Matsil, LLP/HW/FW/HWC 17950 Preston Road, Suite 1000 Dallas, TX 75252 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Ho Ting Cheng 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. HW 81081981US02 1854 EXAMINER LINDENBAUM, ALAN LOUIS ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2466 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/19/2018 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): uspatent@huawei.com docketing@slatermatsil.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte HO TING CHENG, HANG ZHANG, and NIMAL GAMIN! SENARATH Appeal2017-008747 1 Application 13/920, 7 64 Technology Center 2400 Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, JASON V. MORGAN, and ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-27, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 Huawei Technologies Co., LTD. is indicated as being the real party in interest. App. Br. 2. Appeal2017-008747 Application 13/920, 7 64 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction The Application is directed to "telecommunications service network technology, and particularly to a system and a method for estimating an effective bandwidth." Spec. i-f 2. Claims 1 and 27 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below for reference (emphasis added): 1. A method of effective bandwidth estimation, the method compnsmg: obtaining a first traffic pattern of a first traffic source from the first traffic source; setting a first effective bandwidth between a mean data rate of the first traffic source and a peak data rate of the first traffic source; determining a first real time outage rate of the first traffic source in accordance with the first traffic pattern of the first traffic source and the first effective bandwidth; and calculating a multiplexing gain comprising comparing the first effective bandwidth, a second effective bandwidth of a second traffic source, and a third effective bandwidth of a traffic mix, wherein the traffic mix comprises traffic from the first traffic source and traffic from the second traffic source. References and Re} ections The following is the prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal: Scholefield Chatterjee Frey Kim Lewin Thapliya US 6,216,006 Bl US 2006/0072620 Al US 2006/0187836 Al US 2008/0247357 Al US 2009/0224801 Al US 2013/0294234 Al 2 Apr. 10, 2001 Apr. 6, 2006 Aug. 24, 2006 Oct. 9, 2008 Sept. 10, 2009 Nov. 7, 2013 Appeal2017-008747 Application 13/920, 7 64 Claims 1, 16, 17, and 20-27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Scholefield and Kim. Final Act. 2. Claims 2--4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Scholefield, Kim, and Frey. Final Act. 9. Claims 5, 6, 8-15, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Scholefield, Kim, and Thapliya. Final Act. 10. Claim 7 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Scholefield, Kim, Thapliya, and Lewin. Final Act. 13. Claim 18 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Scholefield, Kim, and Chatterjee. Final Act. 13. ANALYSIS Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claim 1, because "the combination of Scholefield and Kim does not teach or suggest at least [] the claimed calculation of the multiplexing gain." Br. 6. Particularly, Appellants contend "Scholefield merely discloses the existence and benefit of a multiplexing gain, but does not teach or suggest calculating the multiplexing gain," and "while Kim discloses the existence of a gain stemming from the presence of many users or calculating an outage rate, Kim does not teach or suggest calculating a multiplexing gain .... "as claimed. Br. 6-7. During prosecution, we give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification as they would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. A cad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 3 67 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2004). "The correct inquiry in giving a claim term its broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification . . . 1s 3 Appeal2017-008747 Application 13/920, 7 64 an interpretation that corresponds with what and how the inventor[ s] describe[] [their] invention in the specification, i.e., an interpretation that is consistent with the specification." In re Smith Int'!, Inc., 871F.3d1375, 1382-83 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (quotations omitted). The Examiner finds the references broadly but reasonably teach the "calculating a multiplexing gain" limitation recited by independent claim 1, because "nowhere does Applicant's Specification disclose a calculation used to determine a multiplexing gain from the statistics of the first effective bandwidth, a second effective bandwidth, and a third effective bandwidth of a traffic mix." Ans. 15. Therefore, "the Examiner interprets the [references'] discussion that the resulting statistical multiplexing gain results in resource requirements ofN multiplexed users that are less than the sum of individual resource requirements for each user to be the claimed 'calculating a multiplexing gain comprising comparing."' Ans. 16; Scholefield 1: 10-20 ("Wireless data networks ... allow[] network operators to exploit the statistical multiplexing gain associated with the fact that there are many users sharing multiple resources"); Kim i-f 59 ("the gain obviously appears when many users exist"). We disagree with the Examiner's claim construction. See Br. 7. Appellants' Specification provides that "the traffic multiplexing gain is calculated by subtracting the effective bandwidth of the traffic mix from the sum of the effective bandwidths of individual traffic sources." Spec. i-f 42; see also Fig. 6. We agree with Appellants that one of ordinary skill in the art, in light of their Specification, would understand the recited "calculating a multiplexing gain" requires more than a description of the mere existence and benefits of a gain. See Br. 10. Rather, the calculating step requires 4 Appeal2017-008747 Application 13/920, 7 64 "comparing" the bandwidths (e.g., subtracting the third effective bandwidth from the sum of the other two bandwidths). See Spec. i-fi-1 60-61, Table 1. Neither Scholefield nor Kim teaches such a calculation. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claim 1, independent claim 27 which recites similar limitations, and claims 2-26 dependent from claim 1. DECISION The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-27 is reversed. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation