Ex Parte RYU et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 17, 2018

14551534 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 17, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/551,534 11/24/2014
68103 7590 09/19/2018
Jefferson IP Law, LLP
1130 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 420
Washington, DC 20036
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Dong Won RYU
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.
0203-0091-4 2896
EXAMINER
WELLS, KENNETH B
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2842
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/19/2018 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):
usdocketing@jeffersonip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DONG WON RYU and EUY BEOM LEE
Appeal2018-000888
Application 14/551,534
Technology Center 2800
Before BRADLEY R. GARRIS, ROMULO H. DELMENDO, and
LILAN REN, Administrative Patent Judges.
DELMENDO, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
The Applicant (hereinafter "Appellant") 1 appeals under 35 U.S.C.
§ 134(a) from the Primary Examiner's final decision to reject claims 21, 22,
24--31, and 33--40. 2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
1 The Appellant is the Applicant, "Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.," which,
according to the Brief, is the real party in interest ( Appeal Brief filed June
12, 2017 (hereinafter "Br.") at 2.
2 Br. 3-5; Final Office Action entered December 12, 2016 (hereinafter
"Final Act.") at 2-12; Examiner's Answer entered July 20, 2017 (hereinafter
"Ans.") at 3-14.
Appeal2018-000888
Application 14/551,534
I. BACKGROUND
The subject matter on appeal relates to a method and apparatus for
attempting to reconnect a call when a call drop occurs in a portable terminal
that can support different communication modes (Specification filed
November 24, 2014 (hereinafter "Spec.") ,r 2 ). Representative claim 21 is
reproduced from the Claims Appendix to the Appeal Brief (Br. 7; emphases
added), as follows:
21. A method comprising:
initiating, at an electronic device, a first connection with a
first cellular network, the first connection to provide a first
service corresponding to a packet switched service;
determining, at the electronic device, that the first
connection has been disconnected due to low signal quality;
and
establishing, at the electronic device, a second
connection with a second cellular network based at least in part
on the determination that the first connection has been
disconnected due to the signal quality,
wherein the second connection provides a second service,
corresponding to a circuit switched service, different from the
first service.
II. REJECTIONS ON APPEAL
The Examiner rejected the claims as follows:
A. Claims 21, 22, 24--31, and 33--40 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over the Inventors' admitted prior art in view of
Pirila et al. 3 (hereinafter "Pirila") and several other prior art
references;
B. Claims 21, 22, 24--31, and 33--40 under the judicially-created
3 US 2005/0180338 Al, published August 18, 2005.
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doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting as unpatentable
over the claims (e.g., claim 1) of US 8,886,196 B2, issued
November 11, 2014; and
C. Claims 21, 22, 24--31, and 33--40 under the judicially-created
doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting as unpatentable
over the claims (e.g., claim 1) of US 8,897,786 B2, issued
November 25, 2014.
(Ans. 3-14; Final Act. 2-12.)
III. DISCUSSION
Rejections Band C. We start with the two rejections based on
obviousness-type double patenting. The Appellant does not provide any
arguments against these two rejections (Br. 3-5). Therefore, we summarily
affirm them. Cf Hyatt v. Dudas, 551 F.3d 1307, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2008) ("In
the event of ... a waiver, the [Board] may affirm the rejection of the group
of claims that the examiner rejected on that ground without considering the
ments. . . . . . ")
Rejection A. The Appellant relies on the same arguments for all
claims subject to this rejection (Br. 3-5). Therefore, we confine our
discussion to claim 21, which we select as representative pursuant to
37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv). As provided by this rule, claims 22, 24--31, and
3 3--40 stand or fall with claim 21.
The Examiner finds that the Inventors' admitted prior art, as discussed
in the Specification (Background of the Invention section), describes a
method that includes every limitation recited in claim 21 except for "the
steps of determining that the first connection (i.e., the video call) has been
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disconnected due to low signal quality, and establishing the second
connection (i.e., setting up the voice call over the second cellular network)
based on the determination that the first connection has been disconnected
due to the low signal quality" (Ans. 4). To resolve these perceived
differences, the Examiner relies on Pirila (id. at 5). Specifically, the
Examiner finds that Pirila "teaches ... determining, at an electronic device,
a low signal quality corresponding to a first connection (i.e., a video call
being conducted by two users over a 3G network) and establishing, at the
electronic device, a second connection (i.e., automatically setting up a voice
call over a second cellular network) based on the determination that the
[video call's] signal quality is low" (id.).
Based on these findings, the Examiner concludes the claimed subject
matter would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art
(id.). According to the Examiner, a person having ordinary skill in the art
would have understood that the "worst-case" scenario in Pirila would be an
unintentional dropped video call (id. at 11 ). Therefore, a person having
ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to implement Pirila' s
technique so as to account for such a scenario where, upon sudden
disconnection of the video call, the connection would be reestablished as a
simple voice call using a backup 2G network to continue the communication
(id.). According to the Examiner, common sense would have suggested
reestablishing the call in such a manner "because a dropped call is
universally understood to be an undesirable occurrence and that the two
parties would of course desire to continue their conversation" (id.).
The Appellant contends that the admitted prior art and Pirila do not
disclose or suggest all the limitations recited in claim 21 (Br. 3).
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Specifically, the Appellant argues that "Pirila discloses establishing the
[backup] voice call when the [ video call' s] quality perfonnance level is
below [a] threshold level, not after the video connection is disconnected"
(id.). The Appellant argues that, "[a]s a result, Pirila's system might
unnecessarily switch to a voice connection when the signal quality level
temporarily drops below the quality threshold, leading to user
inconvenience" (id. at 4). The Appellant argues that although "Pirila's
arrangement is advantageous because the user does not need to deal with
dropped calls," the invention recited in claim 21 "is also advantageous
because the user is not unnecessarily transferred to a lower-quality service
when the quality of the current service is still at an acceptable level to the
user" (id.). The Appellant urges that "[s]ince the Examiner's assertions are
not capable of 'instant and unquestionable demonstration', the Examiner
must provide evidence to show that the person of ordinary skill would" have
combined the admitted prior art and Pirila in the manner claimed by the
Inventors (id. at 5).
We have fully considered the Appellant's arguments but find them to
be without convincing merit and, therefore, ineffective to reveal any
reversible error in the Examiner's rejection. In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356,
1365 (Fed. Cir. 2011).
In describing certain problems that exist in the prior art, Pirila teaches
that video telephony service "suffers from a lower coverage area range
compared to voice" and "[a]s such, uncovered areas for video telephony are
likely to exist throughout operator networks (e.g., within buildings)" (Pirila
,r 7). To address this problem, Pirila discloses "a method for swapping a
video call with a voice call between calling and receiving parties or mobile
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stations" when the quality performance level (inclusive of signal strength) of
the video call is less than a predetermined threshold level (id. ,r 11 ).
Thus, the dispositive issue is whether a person having ordinary skill in
the art would have drawn a reasonable inference from Pirila's teachings that
the prior art technique accounts for----or Pirila's teachings would have
suggested accounting for-the situation where the video call is dropped
because the signal is lost altogether ( e.g., where the mobile device is moved
to an area of a building where the signal is lost or is insufficient to support a
video call). We hold that the ordinary skilled artisan would have drawn such
a reasonable inference.
As the Appellant acknowledges (Br. 5), Pirila's technique is
advantageous because the quality performance threshold may be set to a
level that is above that needed to support a video call. But Pirila also
understood that in certain situations ( e.g., in certain areas within buildings)
video telephony coverage does not exist (Pirila ,r 12). Therefore, Pirila's
teachings, when considered as a whole, account for such situations when
video telephony coverage is suddenly lost ( and, therefore, the video call is
abruptly dropped). See, e.g., Pirila ,r 18 ("the mobile station and method
thereof allow a dynamic or automatic swap the video call with the voice call
using triggering rules, such as, when a quality performance threshold level
of the video call degrades to an unacceptable quality threshold level"
( emphasis added)); ,r 23 ("There are several situations where swapping
between video and voice calls may be needed. For instance, the user using a
user terminal/mobile station ... moving from good 3G coverage into 2G
coverage ( e.g., at a comer, or entry into a building)"; ,r 64 ("the method
monitors the quality performance level of the voice call and determines
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whether the quality performance level of the video call coverage has
dropped close to or below the acceptable level required to support the video
call" ( emphasis added)).
Because claim 21, as broadly drafted, reads on Pirila' s method
designed not only to switch to a voice call before the video call is
disconnected but also when performance levels abruptly drop "below the
acceptable level required to support the video call" (i.e., performance levels
resulting in video call disconnection), we find no reversible error in the
Examiner's rejection.
IV. SUMMARY
Rejections A through Care sustained. Therefore, the Examiner's final
decision to reject claims 21, 22, 24--31, and 33--40 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).
AFFIRMED
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