Ex Parte Shemesh et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 24, 2013

11130652 (P.T.A.B. May. 24, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte YARON SHEMESH, MIHAEL BERCOVICI, and CHARLES SWOPE ____________________ Appeal 2011-003200 Application 11/130,652 Technology Center 3600 ____________________ Before: WILLIAM V. SAINDON, NEIL T. POWELL, and BEVERLY M. BUNTING, Administrative Patent Judges. SAINDON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-003200 Application 11/130,652 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-3, 5-20, and 22. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). The Claimed Subject Matter Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter. 1. A radio beacon for use in location determination of a mobile station inside a building or other enclosure, the radio beacon transmitting a radio frequency (RF) signal having null ephemeris and almanac data and a combination of identity codes that identify the radio beacon capable of reception by a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver of the mobile station, wherein the location of the mobile station is determined based on the identification of the radio beacon. References The Examiner relies upon the following prior art references: Abbott Bruno Longaker US 5,959,575 US 6,160,837 US 6,271,788 B1 Sep. 28, 1999 Dec. 12, 2000 Aug. 7, 2001 Carter US 2003/0146835 A1 Aug. 7, 2003 Awele Ndili, GPS Pseudolite Signal Design (Sep. 1994) (presented at ION- GPS-94, Salt Lake City, Utah). Rejections The Examiner makes the following obviousness rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a): I. Claims 1-3, 5-8, and 22 as unpatentable over Longaker and Ndili. Appeal 2011-003200 Application 11/130,652 3 II. Claims 1-3, 5-8, and 22 as unpatentable over Abbott and Ndili. III. Claims 1-3, 5-20, and 22 as unpatentable over Bruno, Ndili, and Carter. SUMMARY OF DECISION We AFFIRM. OPINION Appellants argue the claims of Rejection I as a group and do not present separate arguments for Rejections II and III. Accordingly, the resolution of the issues with respect to claim 1 of Rejection I are dispositive of the issues with respect to the entire appeal. Appellants first allege several things that their invention is not. Br. 10. Appellants next argue that Ndili “nowhere discloses gold codes that identify a radio beacon.” Br. 11. We adopt the Examiner’s response to Appellants’ arguments as sufficiently articulating the reasons why Appellants’ arguments do not apprise us of error. See Ans. 8-11. In addition, we point out that Longaker already discloses a RF signal transmitting an identifying PRN code (see, e.g., Ans. 4 citing Longaker, col. 9, ll. 1-15); the Examiner’s proposed modification is merely to transmit a combination of such codes in order to benefit the signal-to-interference margin gains, per the teachings of Ndili (see, e.g., Ans. 4, 5 citing Ndili, page 3, col. 2, discussing using 4x1023 Gold codes to “achieve greater levels of signal-to-interference margin gains”). Accordingly, even if we were to accept Appellants’ argument that Ndili’s signal is not specifically intended Appeal 2011-003200 Application 11/130,652 4 to identify a radio beacon1, such an argument is mooted by the fact that it is not directed to the Examiner’s actual proposed combination. DECISION We AFFIRM the Examiner’s decision regarding claims 1-3, 5-20, and 22. 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). AFFIRMED hh 1 The Examiner disposes of Appellants’ argument here, explaining that pseudorandom codes (“PR” or “PRN”), such as those in Ndili, are used for the purpose of identifying the broadcasting device. Ans. 9-11, see also Ndili, page 1, col. 1 (“The use of longer pseudo random (PR) code at C/A code rate … is explored”); Longaker, col. 5, ll. 26-28 (“A signal transmitted by a particular GPS satellite is tracked by generating and matching, or correlating, the PRN code for that particular satellite”); Spec., p. 6 (“There is a different PRN code included in the C/A code for each satellite. GPS satellites are identified by the PRN number, the unique identifier for each PRN code”).