Ex Parte Payyappilly et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 22, 2016

12272440 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 22, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/272,440 11/17/2008
23696 7590 02/24/2016
QUALCOMM INCORPORATED
5775 MOREHOUSE DR.
SAN DIEGO, CA 92121
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Ajith Tom Payyappilly
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.
070778 6311
EXAMINER
BEDNASH, JOSEPH A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2461
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/24/2016 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):
us-docketing@qualcomm.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte AJITH TOM PA YY APPILL Y, DEEP AK KHANDEL WAL,
LEI SHEN, and REZA SHAHID!
Appeal2014-001738
Application 12/272,440
Technology Center 2400
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, TRENTON A. WARD, and
MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges.
SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1, 4--16, 19--28, 30-33, and 35--43, which are all the claims
pending in this application. 2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Qualcomm
Incorporated (App. Br. 3).
2 Claims 2, 3, 17, 18, 29, and 34 have been canceled.
Appeal2014-001738
Application 12/272,440
STATEivIENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' invention relates to "systems and methods for reducing an
occurrence of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call from being
disconnected in an Evolution Data Only (EV-DO) system" (Spec. i-f 9).
Claim 1, which is illustrative of the invention, reads as follows:
1. A method of reducing an occurrence of a Voice
over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call from being disconnected in
an Evolution Data Only (EV-DO) system, the method
compnsmg:
placing the VoIP call on hold; and
issuing at least one keep-alive packet to prevent a radio
link from disconnecting, at least while the VoIP call associated
with the radio link is on hold, wherein the at least one keep-
alive packet is configured to reset a dormancy timer for the call
at one or more network entities such that the call does not
disconnect due to expiration of the dormancy timer, and
wherein the at least one keep-alive packet includes control data
within Real Time Control Protocol (R TCP) packets.
The Examiner's Rejections
Claims 1, 4--16, 19--28, 30-33, and 35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) over Welch (US 7,573,867 Bl; Aug. 11, 2009), Tsukiji
(US 2005/0070293 Al; Mar. 31, 2005), Lappalainen (US 2007 /0097958 Al;
May 3, 2007), and Karol (US 2005/0002400 Al; Jan. 6, 2005) (see Final
Act. 2-9).
Claims 36-43 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Welch,
Tsukiji, Lappalainen, Karol, and Anandakumar (US 6,804,244B1; Oct. 12,
2004) (see Final Act. 9-11).
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Application 12/272,440
Issue on Appeal
Appellants' contentions present us with the following issue:
Has the Examiner erred in rejecting the claims as being obvious over
Welch, Tsukiji, Lappalainen, and Karol because the combination of
references does not teach or suggest the disputed features recited in
Appellants' claim 1?
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellants'
contentions that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants'
conclusions.
The Welch and Tsukiji References
Appellants contend "one of ordinary skill in the art would not have
replaced the CDMA2000 system of Welch with the EV-DO system of
Tsukiji" because "Welch contemplates a CDMA2000 system that is not
optimized with EV-DO" (App. Br. 7; see also Reply Br. 5). Appellants
further argue, because the keep-alive signals in the CDMA2000 system of
Welch conform to Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP), one of ordinary skill
in the art would not have replaced the CDMA2000 system of Welch with the
EV-DO optimized system of Tsukiji (App. Br. 8). According to Appellants,
"modifying Welch in the manner suggested in the Office Action would
require incorporation of QoS monitoring, e.g., in the form ofRTCP
packets," which would have been unnecessary because Welch "already
provides a mechanism for supporting keep-alive signals" (id.).
We agree with the Examiner that an ordinarily skilled artisan would
have been motivated to combine the CDMA2000 system taught by Welch
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Application 12/272,440
with the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) of Tsukiji for real-time play of the
stream data in the Ix EV-DO system in order to improve the transmission
when the server's transmission rate changes (Ans. 3--4 (citing Tsukiji i-f 18)).
Moreover, while Welch already discloses the use of keep-alive packets, we
also agree with the Examiner that an ordinarily skilled artisan would have
been motivated to combine Tsukiji with Welch to include QoS monitoring
based on Tsukiji's teaching regarding the use of RTCP as a control protocol
ofRTP to ensure "a real-time play of the stream data" (Ans. 5 (citing Tsukiji
i-f 18)). Moreover, as further found by the Examiner (Ans. 3), although
Welch mentions CDMA2000 as the interface protocol (col. 5, 11. 33--42) and
RTP packet data for the keep-alive signal (col. 6, 11. 40--47), "any sort of
packet data that would be enough to cause the radio access network to reset
the active-to-dormant timer" may be considered as the keep-alive packets
(col. 6, 11. 47-50).
The Lappalainen Reference
Appellants contend Lappalainen fails to overcome the deficiencies of
Welch and Tsukiji combination (App. Br. 9). In that regard, Appellants
argue Lappalainen generates dummy packets to hold the state of a device
and therefore teaches away from a "keep-alive packet that includes any data
provided by RTCP, much less a keep-alive packet that includes control data
within RTCP packets" (id., Reply Br. 7). Additionally, Appellants assert,
contrary to Lappalainen, the claimed keep-alive packets are not generated
only for creating traffic over the EV-DO system, but for QoS purposes (App.
Br. 9-10).
The Examiner properly finds the absence of using R TCP packets as a
keep-alive signal in Lappalainen does not constitute a teaching away
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Application 12/272,440
because Lappalainen was relied on for teaching voice over Internet Protocol
(VoIP) (Ans. 7). In fact, the Examiner relied on Karol as disclosing an
RTCP packet as a keep-alive signal (Ans. 9--10 (citing Karol, i-fi-f 19, 33)).
As further explained by the Examiner (id.), when combined with Welch and
Tsukiji, sending a keep-alive signal would be needed to maintain the
connection when Lappalainen's VoIP call is placed on hold.
The Karol Reference
Similar to the previously discussed arguments, Appellants contend
Karol fails to overcome the deficiencies of the combination of Welch with
Tsukiji and Lappalainen (App. Br. 10). In particular, Appellants contend
Karol relates to techniques for detecting network failure detection, instead of
''preventing loss of connection" (id.) or "any desire to reduce an occurrence
of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call from being disconnected in an
Evolution Data Only (EV-DO) system" (App. Br. 11, Reply Br. 9--10).
Appellants next contend the rationale for combining Karol with Welch,
Tsukiji, and Lappalainen is insufficient because Karol does not suggest
using RTCP packets to prevent disconnection during a call-on-hold state
(App. Br. 12).
As properly stated by the Examiner (Ans. 9), Karol was not relied on
as disclosing all the claimed limitations. The Examiner however finds Karol
discloses that an RTCP packet can be a keep-alive signal (Ans. 9--10 (citing
Karol i-fi-f 19, 33)). We also understand the Examiner's position to be based
on the combination of the references according to the stated rationale for
combining Karol with Welch, Tsukiji, and Lappalainen, which we adopt as
our own (see Ans. 10-11). Therefore, we agree with the Examiner that it is
not necessary for Karol to teach or suggest the features found in other
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applied references (Ans. 11 ). Nonobviousness cannot be established by
attacking the references individually when the rejection is predicated upon a
combination of prior art disclosures. See In re Merck & Co. Inc., 800 F.2d
1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
CONCLUSION
In view of our analysis above, we are unpersuaded by Appellants'
contentions and agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusions
regarding the rejection of claim 1 and adopt them as our own. Therefore, we
sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claim 1, independent claims 16,
28, and 33, as well as dependent claims 4--15, 19--27, 30-32, and 35--43,
which are not argued separately (see App. Br. 13).
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 4--16, 19-28, 30-33,
and 35--43 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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