Ex Parte Stirling-Gallacher et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 29, 2013

12537531 (P.T.A.B. May. 29, 2013)

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. 12/537,531 08/07/2009 Richard Stirling-Gallacher 450117-4865.2 5561 20999 7590 05/30/2013 FROMMER LAWRENCE & HAUG 745 FIFTH AVENUE- 10TH FL. NEW YORK, NY 10151 EXAMINER ROBERTS, BRIAN S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2466 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/30/2013 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 RICHARD STIRLING-GALLACHER and JENS-UWE JURGENSEN ____________ Appeal 2013-002413 Application 12/537,531 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, HUNG H. BUI, and MIRIAM L. QUINN, Administrative Patent Judges. SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING Appellants request rehearing of the January 29, 2013, Decision on Appeal (“Decision”), wherein we affirmed the rejections of claims 15-17, 21-27, and 31-34 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Zehavi and of claims 18-20 and 28-30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being Appeal 2013-002413 Application 12/537,531 2 unpatentable over Zehavi and Bottomley. We have reconsidered the Decision in light of Appellants’ arguments but, for the reasons given below, we are not persuaded of any error therein. Appellants argue that our decision misapprehended or overlooked the recited feature “spreading each of the one or more data . . . wherein the one or more associated spreading codes are mutually orthogonal . . . each of the plurality of scrambled codes being used within a same link” of claim 15 (Req. Reh’g 1). Appellants assert that the relied-on portion of Zehavi in column 7 discloses that the symbols on the traffic channel are all orthogonal to one another, whereas column 5 of Zehavi explains that symbols on the “[o]verflow channels are not provided with unique orthogonal or Walsh sequences and as such are not assured of being orthogonal to all traffic channels” (Req. Reh’g 1-2). Appellants conclude that, if “the link between user terminal 2 and gateway 8 in Figure 1 show[s] that the traffic channel and the overflow channel are parts of the same link,” as determined in our Decision, the symbols on the same link are not all orthogonal to one another (Req. Reh’g 2). These arguments are unpersuasive because the Board explicitly adopted as its own the Examiner’s findings and conclusions stated on page 4 of the Answer, which addressed the teachings of Zehavi with respect to the PN short code and PN’ long code allocated to the traffic channel and the overflow channel, respectively (Decision 4). Zehavi, in an alternative embodiment, provides pseudorandom noise functions PNI and PNQ as short codes and pseudorandom noise functions PN’I and PN’Q as long codes (see Zehavi, col. 8, ll. 38-41). As such, and as noted in our Decision (id.), the claimed plurality of scrambling codes used within the same link are Appeal 2013-002413 Application 12/537,531 3 orthogonal to one another based on the pseudorandom noise functions used to spread the orthogonal function spread packet in quadrant spreading elements 62, and 64 (see also Zehavi, col. 7, ll. 20-34 and 55-65). CONCLUSION Based on the foregoing, we have granted Appellants’ request to the extent that we have reconsidered our decision, but we deny Appellants’ request to make any changes therein. DECISION The request for rehearing is denied. 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). REHEARING DENIED ELD