Ex Parte Jeong et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 28, 2017

13525973 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 28, 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. 13/525,973 06/18/2012 Kyeong-In JEONG 678-3446 CON (P15970) 4132 66547 7590 03/30/2017 THE FARRELL LAW FIRM, P.C. 290 Broadhollow Road Suite 210E Melville, NY 11747 EXAMINER SLOMS, NICHOLAS ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2476 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/30/2017 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): pto @ farrelliplaw. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte KYEONG-IN JEONG, GERT JAN VAN LIESHOUT, HIMKE VAN DER VELDE, and SOENG-HUN KIM Appeal 2016-007430 Application 13/525,9731 Technology Center 2400 Before THU A. DANG, STEPHEN C. SIU, and SCOTT E. BAIN, Administrative Patent Judges. SIU, 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—5, 7—11, 13—15, 17—19, and 21—26. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd. (Appeal Brief, filed November 20, 2015 (“App. Br.”) 1). Appeal 2016-007430 Application 13/525,973 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The disclosed invention relates generally to mobile communication systems. Spec 1:15—17. Independent claim 1 reads as follows: 1. A method for performing a random access (RA) procedure by a user equipment (UE) in a mobile communication system, the method comprising: transmitting a first message including an RA preamble; receiving, from a base station, a second message including a first radio network temporary identifier (RNTI), which is an RA response message, in response to the first message; if the UE already has a second RNTI assigned by the base station before starting the RA procedure, transmitting a third message including the second RNTI to the base station in response to the second message; starting a timer for collision detection in the RA procedure, when the third message including the second RNTI is transmitted; and determining that a contention for the RA procedure is resolved, if UE-specific control information is received from the base station before expiration of the timer, wherein the UE-specific control information including a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) related to the second RNTI is received on a downlink control channel. Appellants appeal the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—5, 7—11, IS IS, 17—19, and 21—26 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kitazoe (US 2010/0189071 Al, published July 29, 2010, “Kitazoe”) and 2 Appeal 2016-007430 Application 13/525,973 Damnjanovic et al. (US 2010/0093386 Al, published April 15, 2010, “Damnj ano vie”).2 3 ANALYSIS Claim 1 recites “UE-specific control information” that is “received from the base station” and contains “a cyclic redundancy check (CRC) related to the second RNTI.” The Examiner finds that Kitazoe (in combination with Damnjanovic) discloses this feature. Final Act. 7—8, Ans. 5—6 (citing Kitazoe Tflf 4, 9, 31, 44, 46, 48, Fig. 4; Damnjanovic Tflf 82, 88, 102). We agree with the Examiner. For example, Kitazoe discloses that the base station (i.e., “eNB”) may “send a message ... [to a specific UE] for contention resolution” (i.e., a message is sent from a base station (or a message is “received from the base station”) to a specific UE (“UE- specific”)). Kitazoe 148. Appellants argue that “Kitazoe does not teach or suggest ‘UE-specific control information’ used for a contention resolution in the RA procedure, as recited in independent Claim 1.” App. Br. 11. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument at least in view of the explicit disclosure of Kitazoe that the message is sent from the base station (i.e., “eNB”) “for contention resolution.” Kitazoe 148. Claim 1 recites that the UE-specific control information includes a cyclic redundancy check (CRC). As noted above, the Examiner finds that 2 The Examiner withdraws the rejection of claims 1—4, 7—10, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 21—26 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph. Ans. 2. 3 Appeal 2016-007430 Application 13/525,973 Damnjanovic (in combination with Kitazoe) discloses this feature. We agree with the Examiner. For example, as the Examiner points out, Kitazoe discloses “other types of information are included . . . [and] used by the UE” and discloses that the message sent from the base station “for contention resolution” “may send context information for the UE, which may include . . . information used to support communication for the UE.” Ans. 6; Kitazoe 1148,51. As the Examiner also points out, Damnjanovic discloses that one of skill in the art would have understood that information used to support communication for a UE would have included a “Cyclic Redundancy check (CRC).” Final Act. 7—8 (citing Damnjanovic H 82, 88, 102). We conclude it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have combined the known feature of sending a message for contention resolution from a base station to a UE, the message including any information used to support communication for the UE (as disclosed by Kitazoe) and the known feature that information used to support communication for the UE includes a cyclic redundancy check (as disclosed by Damnjanovic) to achieve the predictable result of supporting communication and contention resolution for a UE using information (including a cyclic redundancy check) that is used to support communication and contention resolution. “The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398,416 (2007). Appellants argue that “Damnjanovic fails to teach or suggest that the RRC Contention Resolution in Message 4 (which is the alleged UE-specific 4 Appeal 2016-007430 Application 13/525,973 control information) includes a CRC He., cyclic redundancy check! associated with a temporary identifier” and that Damnjanovic “does not teach or suggest the use of the CRC in Message 4.” App. Br. 12, 14. We are not persuaded by Appellants argument for the reasons of record. For example, the Examiner relies on the combination of Kitazoe (disclosing that any information used to support communication for the UE is included in the UE-specific control information) and Damnjanovic (disclosing that such information known to be used to support communication for a UE includes a cyclic redundancy check) and does not rely on Damnjanovic in isolation. One cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981). Appellants argue that the combination of Kitazoe and Damnjanovic fails to teach or suggest ‘“UE-specific control information including a CRC related to the second RNTE.” App. Br. 15. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument for at least the reasons set forth by the Examiner. Final Act. 7—8, Ans. 5—7. For example, as previously discussed, Kitazoe discloses a UE transmitting “C-RNTI information” to the base station and the base station, after “receiv[ing] this C-RNTI from the . . . transmission,” “send[s] a message [to the UE] for contention resolution.” Kitazoe ]Hf 46, 48. In other words, Kitazoe discloses that the message (that includes any information for communication, as discussed above), is transmitted from the base station to the UE after receiving the “second RNTI.” Appellants do not explain persuasively a meaningful difference between the message 5 Appeal 2016-007430 Application 13/525,973 containing information used in communication being sent in response to receiving the RNTI and the claim feature of information containing information used in communication (i.e., CRC) that is related to the RNTI. In both cases, the message being transmitted from the base station to the UE is related to the RNTI. Appellants do not provide additional arguments in support of the other claims subject to appeal. For the foregoing reasons, we find the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1—20. DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—20. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 6