Ex Parte ÖSTERLING

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 25, 2016

12944999 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 25, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/944,999 11/12/2010
23117 7590 04/27/2016
NIXON & V ANDERHYE, PC
901 NORTH GLEBE ROAD, 11 TH FLOOR
ARLINGTON, VA 22203
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Jacob OSTERLING
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.
2380-1563 6848
EXAMINER
SCHEIBEL, ROBERT C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2467
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/27/2016 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):
PTOMAIL@nixonvan.com
pair_nixon@firsttofile.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JACOB OSTERLING
Appeal2014-004730
Application 12/944,999
Technology Center 2400
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, KRISTEN L. DROESCH, and
SCOTT E. BAIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1-25, which are all the claims pending in this application. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Telefonaktiebolaget
L M Ericsson (App. Br. 3).
Appeal2014-004730
Application 12/944,999
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellant's invention relates to Coordinated MultiPoint (COMP)
operation in a cellular communication network (Spec. 1 ). Exemplary claim
1 under appeal reads as follows:
1. A method for Coordinated MultiPoint, COMP,
operation for a serving radio base station serving user
equipment, UE, in a cellular communication network, said
method comprising:
said serving radio base station providing In-phase
and Quadrature-phase, IQ, samples, referred to as own IQ
samples, based on received radio signals including a radio
signal originating from an uplink transmission of at least one
UE·
'
said serving radio base station joining a multicast
group for receiving complementary IQ samples from a
supporting radio base station via a network interface to a
transport network that interconnects the radio base stations,
wherein said process of joining a multicast group is based on
retrieving a multicast address corresponding to the multicast
group and configuring the network interface for reception on
that multicast address, wherein said complementary IQ samples
correspond to received radio signals at said supporting radio
base station; and
said serving radio base station processing said own
IQ samples and said complementary IQ samples to decode user
data of said uplink transmission.
The Examiner's Rejections
Claims 1, 6-9, 13-15, 20, and 22-24 provisionally stand rejected on
the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting over claims 2,
3, 6, 8, 12, 14--17, 19, and 20 of copending Application No. 12/945,001
(hereinafter "the '001 application") (Final Act. 4--8).
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Application 12/944,999
Claims 1-12, 14--16, 18, and 20-25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Hoymann (Christian Hoymann et al.,
Distributed Uplink Signal Processing of Cooperating Base Stations based
on IQ Sample Exchange, IEEE ICC PROCEEDINGS, 2009) and De Oliveira
(US 2002/0093943 Al; July 18, 2002) (Final Act. 8-23).
Claim 13 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Hoymann, De Oliveira, and Lo (US 2007 /0127459 Al; June 7, 2007)
(Final Act. 23-24).
Claim 17 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Hoymann, De Oliveira, and Lindoff (US 2009/0257533 Al; Oct. 15,
2009) (Final Act. 24).
Claim 19 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Hoymann, De Oliveira, and Kwon (US 2011/0305185 Al; Dec. 15,
2011) (Final Act. 25).
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellant's
arguments in the Appeal Brief that the Examiner has erred.
Non-statutory Obviousness-type Double Patenting Rejection
Appellant presents no argument to rebut this rejection (see App. Br.
14--20). Thus, we summarily sustain the Examiner's double patenting
rejection.
35 U.S.C. § 103 Rejections
With respect to the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections of the claims, we
disagree with Appellant's conclusions. We adopt as our own (1) the
findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this
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Application 12/944,999
appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the
Examiner's Answer (Ans. 2-7) in response to Appellant's Appeal Brief. We
concur with the conclusion reached by the Examiner.
Claims 1, 7, 14, and 20
Appellant's contention that De Oliveira does not disclose any
interface between base stations is not persuasive of Examiner error. We
specifically agree with the Examiner (Ans. 12-13) that De Oliveira was
relied on merely as disclosing "the obviousness of using a multicast group as
an efficient method of transmitting data from one source to multiple
destinations" whereas Hoymann discloses the recited "interfaces between
base stations and the IQ information transmitted on these interfaces." Ans.
3. In fact, contrary to Appellant's contention that using multicast groups
benefits "enabling a second serving base station to decode transmissions
from another wireless terminal" (App. Br. 16; see also Reply Br. 2), claim 1
is not so limited. As found by the Examiner (Ans. 4), the combination of
Hoymann and De Oliveira teaches or suggest such benefits. That is, one of
ordinary skill in the art would have improved the network operation by
reducing the processor load and signaling load on the network taught by De
Oliveira in combination with the distributed processing of Hoymann (see
also Ans. 5 (citing De Oliveira i-f 6)).
Therefore, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 1, 7,
14, and 20.
Claims 3, 9, and 22
We are not persuaded by Appellant's contention that the combination
of Hoymann and De Oliveira does not disclose or suggest the
"complementary IQ samples be IQ samples extracted based on received
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Application 12/944,999
radio signals at said supporting radio base station in a selected subset of the
available frequency band and/or from a selected subset of the available
antennas" recited in claim 3 (App. Br. 19). Contrary to Appellant's assertion
that "the phrase 'available frequency band' logically refers to the portion of
the frequency band that is available to carry IQ samples, not necessarily an
entire grid of resources" (id.), the broadest reasonable interpretation of claim
3 does not preclude the "available frequency band" from reading on
Hoymann's IQ samples (see Ans. 6 (citing Hoymann Fig. 1, last paragraph
of column 2 on page 1 )).
Therefore, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 3, 9,
and 22.
Claims 4, 10, and 23
Appellant contends the combination of Hoymann and De Oliveira
does not teach or suggest the features of claim 4 because Hoymann's use of
Resource Blocks (RBs) by a specific UE provides "no incentive to organize
common use of sub-bands for delivery of IQ samples between the radio base
stations" (App. Br. 20). We agree with the Examiner that, because such
benefits are not recited in claim 4, Hoymann' s disclosure of "a UE (a subset
of the UEs) is assigned to resource blocks which represents a subset of the
available frequency band" meets the disputed limitation of claim 4 (see Ans.
7).
Therefore, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 4, 10,
and 23.
Remaining Claims
Appellant presents no separate arguments in support of the
patentability of the remaining claims (see App. Br. 14--20). Accordingly, we
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sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejections of the remaining claims. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-25 is affirmed.
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
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