Ex Parte RYU et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 17, 201814551534 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 17, 2018) Copy Citation 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. 2 Appeal2018-000888 Application 14/551,534 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 3 Appeal2018-000888 Application 14/551,534 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). 4 Appeal2018-000888 Application 14/551,534 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 5 Appeal2018-000888 Application 14/551,534 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 6 Appeal2018-000888 Application 14/551,534 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 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation