Ex Parte Reid

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 18, 2012

10864866 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 18, 2012)

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.
10/864,866 06/10/2004 Jeffrey T. Reid 45390 7463
1609 7590 10/18/2012
ROYLANCE, ABRAMS, BERDO & GOODMAN, L.L.P.
1300 19TH STREET, N.W.
SUITE 600
WASHINGTON,, DC 20036
EXAMINER
ALAM, FAYYAZ
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2649
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/18/2012 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 JEFFREY T. REID
____________

Appeal 2010-006592
Application 10/864,866
Technology Center 2600
____________

Before DENISE M. POTHIER, BARBARA A. BENOIT,
and DAVID C. MCKONE, Administrative Patent Judges.

MCKONE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-20, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant’s invention relates land mobile radio systems, for example
those used by taxicab companies and police departments. See, e.g., Spec. ¶
[0003]. Claim 1, which is illustrative of the invention, reads as follows:
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1. A method for operating at least a new trunking
radio system by at least one of a console, local desk-set or
remote desk-set for a conventional radio system, comprising:
defining a system/group table in a trunking tone remote
adapter which controls at least the new trunking radio system;
receiving at the trunking tone remote adapter a tone
sequence from the at least one of the console, local desk-set or
remote desk-set for the conventional radio system;
decoding a function tone at the trunking tone remote
adapter from the tone sequence;
mapping the decoded function tone received from the at
least one of the console, local desk-set or remote desk-set for
the conventional radio system to the defined system/group table
to determine an executable function by the trunking tone remote
adapter; and
controlling at least the new trunking radio system
according to the executable function by the trunking tone
remote adapter.
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Cannalte US 3,577,080 May 4, 1971
Maedjaja US 5,481,545 Jan. 2, 1996
GAI-Tronics Corp., Dispatch Solutions (Publication No. 990101, July
2003).
Claims 1, 3, 10, 11, 13, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as being anticipated by Maedjaja. See Ans. 3-7.
Claims 2 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious
over Maedjaja and Cannalte. See Ans. 8-10.
Claims 4-9 and 14-19 stand rejected und under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Maedjaja and GAI-Tronics. See Ans. 10-16.

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ISSUES
Appellant argues independent claims 1, 10, 11, and 20 as a group. See
App. Br. 14-17. Appellant does not separately argue the rejections of the
dependent claims. Accordingly, we will discuss Appellant’s contentions by
reference to claim 1.
Appellant contends that Maedjaja does not disclose:
1. “determin[ing] an executable function by the trunking tone
remote adapter” (App. Br. 15-16); or
2. “controlling at least the new trunking radio system,” (App. Br.
15-17) as recited in claim 1.
Accordingly, the issues raised by Appellant’s contentions are as
follows: With regard to each of the above referenced claim limitations, did
the Examiner err in finding that Maedjaja discloses the limitation?
Rather than repeat the arguments here, we refer to the Briefs and the
Answer for the respective positions of Appellant and the Examiner. Only
those arguments actually made by Appellant have been considered in this
decision. Arguments that Appellant did not make in the Briefs have not
been considered and are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(vii).

ANALYSIS
Maedjaja describes a gateway between a conventional (non-trunked)
radio-frequency (RF) communication system and a digitally trunked
communication system. Figure 1 of Maedjaja is reproduced below:
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Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of an RF communication system. S3
is a conventional base station communicating with conventional radios M3A
and M3B in conventional communication system A3. See Maedjaja col. 6,
ll. 23-30. S1 and S2 are trunked repeater sites that communicate with
digitally-trunked radios M1 and M2 in trunking communication systems A1
and A2, respectively. See id. at col. 5, ll. 53-67. Maedjaja describes a
conventional network interface (“CNI”) 56 that interfaces between the
conventional site S3 and a digitally-trunked multisite switch 52, which in
turn communicates with digitally-trunked sites S1 and S2. See Maedjaja col.
6, l. 67–col. 7, l. 2. Appellant concedes that the CNI “interfaces between
two systems so that trunked and non-trunked radios can automatically
communicate[] together . . . .” App. Br. 14. The Examiner found that CNI
56 met the “trunking tone remote adapter” limitation of claim 1. See Ans. 3.
The Examiner also found that Maedjaja discloses “determin[ing] an
executable function” as claimed by claim 1, a finding disputed by Appellant.
Specifically, the Examiner pointed to Maedjaja’s description of the CNI’s
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mapping of a decoded subaudible tone received from a conventional radio to
entries in a mapping table to determine a group ID on the trunked system
with which the conventional radio is to communicate. See Ans. 3-4 (citing
Maedjaja, col. 8, ll. 3-10). In response to Appellant’s arguments, the
Examiner made clear that “the executable function in Maedjaja is whether to
permit access or deny access into the communication system based on the
subaudible tone or the function tone.” Ans. 17 (citing Maedjaja, col. 8, ll. 3-
10, emphasis in original). Thus, we understand the Examiner to have found
that Maedjaja discloses “mapping the decoded function tone . . . to
determine an executable function by the trunking tone remote adapter” by
disclosing decoding the tone from the radio M3A at CNI 56, mapping that
tone to a group ID, and from that group ID ascertaining the information
necessary to access the group and communicate with it. See Maedjaja, col.
8, ll. 3-24. According to the Examiner, by permitting the conventional radio
to communicate with a trunking radio system according to the decoded
subaudible tone, Maedjaja’s CNI 56 controls the trunking radio system
according to the executable function. See Ans. 4 (citing Maedjaja, col. 8, ll.
3-61; Figs. 1, 5, 6), 17 (citing Maedjaja, col. 8, ll. 3-10).
Appellant disagrees, contending that Maedjaja’s “CNI 56 simply
maps an ‘authorized’ tone into a digital group ID used by [the] digitally
trunked portion of its system,” while in Appellant’s invention “the tone
sequence from a conventional . . . radio system is decoded and mapped to
the defined system/group table to determine an executable function which is
used to control the trunking radio system.” App. Br. 15.
According to Appellant, the Specification describes an example of
determining an executable function at paragraph [0053]. See App. Br. 10
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(discussing step 54 in Figure 7 described at Spec. ¶ [0053]). Here, the
Specification explains that “the trunking tone remote adapter 36 maps the
function tone received from either a local desk set 46, local or remote
trunking desk sets 30, 32, or console 22, to the pre-programmed
system/group table, in order to determine the appropriate ‘function’ to
execute.” Spec. ¶ [0053]. The Specification further explains that “[t]he
‘function’ is the particular system and/or group to tune the trunking radio
system to with respect to the function tone as desired by the particular
dispatch operator . . . .” Id. The Examiner found that mapping the
subaudible tone to determine a group ID for authorizing or permitting access
to the trunking system constituted the mapping step that determines an
executable function as recited. See Ans. 17-18; see also Final Rej. 2.
Similar to this example in Appellant’s Specification, Maedjaja’s CNI maps
the subaudible tone received from a conventional radio to a group table in
order to determine the particular group to which to tune the trunking radio
system. See Maedjaja, col. 8, ll. 3-10. Giving the phrase, “to determine an
executable function” in claim 1, its broadest reasonable interpretation in
light of the disclosure, we agree with the Examiner.
Appellant also contends that Maedjaja does not disclose “controlling
at least the new trunking radio system[.]” Instead,
Maedjaja discloses a means (CNI 56) for mapping calls from
trunked and non-trunked transceivers so that transceivers from
both trunked and non- trunked systems can participate in a call,
rather than a method or apparatus for controlling a trunking
radio system by a console of a conventional (e.g., non-trunking)
radio system . . . .
App. Br. 16-17 (emphasis in original).
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The Examiner explained that a communication system includes all the
transceivers necessary for communication between the conventional radio
and trunking radios and found that “permitting access of a transceiver from
one system into another system is interpreted as controlling access of the
transceivers, i.e., ‘controlling’ the radio system.” Ans. 17 (emphasis in
original). According to the Examiner, permitting conventional radios to
participate in communication with a trunking radio system according to the
subaudible tone, as described in Maedjaja at column 8, lines 3-16,
constitutes controlling the trunking radio system. See Ans. 4.
Appellant disputes this finding, arguing that “controlling at least the
new trunking radio system” should be interpreted as “controlling the system
itself, rather than merely controlling access thereto.” App. Br. 16. In his
Reply, Appellant further contends that his Specification describes
controlling to “include[], for example, controlling a radio to scan channels or
to cease scanning . . . .” Reply Br. 5 (citing Spec. ¶¶ [0038], [0003]-[0009]).
However, Appellant does not explain why the claims should be limited to
this example or how “controlling a radio to scan channels” differs from
“controlling access of the transceivers”– a function the Examiner found to be
disclosed in Maedjaja (see Ans. 17). Paragraph [0038] of the Specification
also describes the processing of “control tone sequences” by specific
circuitry, noting that “[t]hese operations are well known to those skilled in
the art.” Appellant again does not explain why the claims should be limited
to this example in the Specification.
Paragraph [0003], in the Specification’s Description of Related Art,
explains that “[t]runking radio systems . . . lack full console control, such as
the ability to talk to more than one group at a time, or to easily change or
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reassign groups.” To the extent that Appellant is arguing that claim 1 is
limited to such “full console control,” that argument is not commensurate in
scope with the claim language, which claims “controlling at least the new
trunking radio system according to the executable function.”
According to Appellant’s Specification, after the system/group setting
is determined, the trunking tone remote adapter “outputs the necessary
control signals to the trunking radio system to select the new system/group.”
Spec. ¶ [0053]. Thus, an example of “controlling at least the new trunking
radio system according to the executable function” is outputting control
signals to tune the trunking radio system to the particular group
corresponding to the received tone. See id. This is essentially what the
Examiner found to be disclosed in Maedjaja. See Ans. 3-4, 17-18 (citing
col. 8, ll. 3-61). That is, based on the tone received and mapped to a group
ID, Maedjaja outputs signals that permit the non-trunked users (e.g., part of
the conventional radio system) to communicate with trunked users (e.g., a
particular group) and control system communications. See id. Giving
“controlling at least the new trunking radio system according to the
executable function” its broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the
disclosure, we agree with the Examiner that Maedjaja’s access control
process discloses the disputed limitation of controlling the new trunking
radio system.
Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of (1) claim 1; (2) claims 10, 11,
and 20, which include recitations substantially the same as those of claim 1;
(3) claims 2-9, which depend on claim 1; and (4) claims 12-19, which
depend on claim 11.

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ORDER
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-20 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)(1). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv) (2010).

AFFIRMED

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