Ex Parte Radich

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 23, 2012

10607967 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 23, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE 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. 10/607,967 06/27/2003 William M. Radich S104.12-0037/STL 11305 3060 27365 7590 10/24/2012 SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY LLC C/O WESTMAN, CHAMPLIN & KELLY, P.A. SUITE 1400 900 SECOND AVENUE SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402-3244 EXAMINER CHAUDRY, MUJTABA M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2112 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/24/2012 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte WILLIAM M. RADICH Appeal 2012-0089791 Application 10/607,967 Technology Center 2100 ____________________ Before JEAN R. HOMERE, THU A. DANG, and GREGORY J. GONSALVES, Administrative Patent Judges. HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL 1 The real party in interest is Seagate Technology, LLC. (App. Br. 1.) Appeal 2012-008979 Application 10/607,967 2 I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1-3, 5-8, 10-13, 15-18, 21-23, and 27. Claims 4, 9, 14, 19, 20, 24-26, and 28-30 have been canceled. (App. Br. 2.) We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appellant’s Invention Appellant invented a method and system for computing branch metric values in a data detector to thereby reduce the number of parameters to be estimated within a read channel. (Spec. 2, ll.17-21.) In particular, after programming the data detector with a statistical model having a transition jitter variables, the model is used to process signal samples received from the read channel to calculate branch metric values corresponding thereto. The statistical model includes an inverse weighing term having a value based on the number of transitions in the signal samples. (Id. at ll. 22-27, Id. at 7, ll. 12-26.) Illustrative Claim Independent claim 1 further illustrates the invention. Claim 1 reads as follows: 1. A method of determining branch metric values in a detector, the method comprising: (a) programming the detector with a statistical model having a transition jitter variable that represents, for each data symbol, a jitter or shift in discrete time with respect to a Appeal 2012-008979 Application 10/607,967 3 sampled symbol rate and that relates transition jitter to signal sample noise in an amplitude domain; (b) receiving a sequence of time variant signal samples; and (c) computing, by control circuitry, the branch metric values as a function of transition jitter statistics corresponding to the sequence of time variant signal samples based on the statistical model, wherein computing the branch metric values includes employing an inverse weighting term that has a value that is based on a number of transitions in the sequence of time variant signal samples, and wherein the inverse weighting term is calculated based on the statistical model. Prior Art Relied Upon Kavcic US 6,438,180 B1 Aug. 2, 2002 Jeon US 6,728,928 B2 Apr. 27, 2004 Rejection on Appeal The Examiner rejects claims 1-3, 5-8, 10-13, 15-18, 21-23, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Kavcic and Jeon. ANALYSIS We consider Appellant’s arguments seriatim as they are presented in the Appeal Brief, pages 4-9. Representative Claim 1 Appeal 2012-008979 Application 10/607,967 4 Dispositive Issue: Has Appellant shown that the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of Kavcic and Jeon teaches or suggests statistical model including an inverse weighing term that has a value based on a number of transitions in a received sequence of signal samples to thereby calculate the branch metric values corresponding thereto, as recited in claim 1? Appellant argues that the combination of Kavcic and Jeon does not teach or suggest the disputed limitations emphasized above. (App. Br. 6-7.) In particular, Appellant argues that while Jeon discloses “scaling as moving a boundary between first and second decode values by an additive amount,” the reference does not teach or suggest the disputed limitations, and thereby does not cure the deficiencies of Kavcic. (Id. at 7.) In response, the Examiner finds that Kavcic’s discloses a statistical model including an inverse of a covariance matrix for performing branch metric calculations based on weights. (Ans. 5-7, 13-15.) The Examiner further finds that Jeon’s disclosure of a Viterbi detector having a transition jitter variable that utilizes the number of transitions in a signal sample to calculate branch metric values in a detector complements Kavcic’s disclosure to teach the disputed limitations. (Id.) Based upon our review of the record, we agree with, and adopt herein the Examiner’s underlying factual findings and ultimate conclusion of obviousness regarding claim 1. We note at the outset that Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief failed to address the specific findings made by the Examiner in the Final Rejection, which are reproduced at pages 5-7 of Appeal 2012-008979 Application 10/607,967 5 the Answer, and incorporated herein by reference. As set forth in the Answer, the Examiner relies upon the combination of the afore-cited teachings of Kavcic (col. 3, ll. 47-67, col. 8, ll. 30-67) and Jeon (col. 1, l. 62- col. 2, l. 16, col. 11, ll. 4-6) to establish a prima facie case of obviousness against the claim. However, at pages 6-7 of the Appeal Brief, Appellant only addressed Kavcic (col. 7, ll. 24-32) and Jeon’s abstract instead of the specific portions of the references upon which Examiner relied upon in the rejection. In our view, Appellant’s analysis of portions of the references not relied upon in the rejection is not responsive to the Examiner’s specific findings made in the Answer. Further, we find untimely Appellant’s arguments in the Reply Brief that the teachings of Kavcic and Jeon are not properly combinable for lack of sufficient motivation. (Reply Br. 1-5.) We note that these new arguments were raised by Appellant for the first time in the Reply Brief, and they are not in response to a new issue brought up by the Examiner in the Answer. We therefore find these new arguments unavailing.2 Appellant is reminded that: The purpose of a reply brief is to ensure the Appellant the opportunity to have the last word on an issue raised by the Examiner. The reply brief enables the Appellant to address any new grounds of rejection the Examiner may have raised in the answer, or to address changes or developments in the law that may have occurred after the 2 “[I]t is inappropriate for appellants to discuss in their reply brief matters not raised in … the principal brief[ ]. Reply briefs are to be used to reply to matter[s] raised in the brief of the appellee.” Kaufman Co. v. Lantech, Inc., 807 F.2d 970, 973 n.* (Fed. Cir. 1986). Appeal 2012-008979 Application 10/607,967 6 principal brief was filed. The reply brief is not an opportunity to make arguments that could have been made during prosecution, but were not. Nor is the reply brief an opportunity to make arguments that could have been made in the principal brief on appeal to rebut the Examiner’s rejections, but were not. Giving cognizance to belated arguments in a reply would vitiate the force of the requirement in Board Rule 37(c)(1)(vii) that “[a]ny arguments or authorities not included in the brief . . . will be refused consideration by the Board, unless good cause is shown.” The reference in that section to the “reply brief filed pursuant to § 41.41” does not create a right for the Appellant to raise an argument in the reply brief that could have been raised in the principal brief but was not. Rather, that reference merely puts Appellants on notice that arguments that could be made in the reply brief, but are not, are waived. See Ex Parte Borden IV, Appeal 2008-004312, p. 4. (Jan. 7, 2010) (informative.) We have previously held that "[i]f an appellant fails to present arguments on a particular issue … the Board will not, as a general matter, unilaterally review those uncontested aspects of the rejection." Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential) (citations omitted). Consequently, because Appellant’s arguments are ineffective in demonstrating error in the Examiner’s prima facie case to establish the patentability of the claims on appeal, we find Appellant has failed to rebut the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 with any persuasive analysis. See Ex parte Belinne, No. 2009-004693, WL 2477843 slip op. at 7-8 (BPAI Aug. 10, 2009) (informative.) For at least the aforementioned reasons, we find Appellant has not sustained the requisite burden on appeal of providing arguments or evidence Appeal 2012-008979 Application 10/607,967 7 persuasive of error in the Examiner’s rejection of representative claim 1. It therefore follows that Appellant has not shown that the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of Kavcic and Jeon renders claim 1 unpatentable. Regarding claims 11 and 27, Appellant merely alleges that the combination of Kavcic and Jeon does not teach the limitations recited in those claims. (App. Br. 7-9.) Appellant is reminded that merely repeating what the claims recite, and making a general allegation of patentability does not constitute a persuasive argument. See Ex parte Belinne, at 7-8. Regarding claim 23, we note that Appellant’s arguments also suffer of the aforementioned deficiencies outlined in our discussion of claim 1. Further, the Examiner has rebutted by a preponderance of the evidence each argument separately raised by Appellant in the Brief regarding the cited claims. (Ans. 17-18). We consequently adopt the Examiner’s findings, which incorporate herein by reference. Because these findings have not been persuasively rebutted by Appellant, we find that Appellant has not shown error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 23. Claims 2, 3, 5-8, 10, 12, 13, 15-18, 21, and 22 (not argued separately) fall with claims 1 and/or 11. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-3, 5-8, 10-13, 15-18, 21-23, and 27 as set forth above. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). Appeal 2012-008979 Application 10/607,967 8 AFFIRMED tj