Ex Parte Tosato et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 28, 2018

14969369 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 28, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 14/969,369 12/15/2015 Filippo TOSATO 24737 7590 03/30/2018 PHILIPS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & STANDARDS 465 Columbus A venue Suite 340 Valhalla, NY 10595 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. 2006P02029US 7264 EXAMINER HAIDER, SYED ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2633 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/30/2018 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): patti. demichele@Philips.com marianne.fox@philips.com katelyn.mulroy@philips.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Exparte FILIPPO TOSATO and TIMOTHY JAMES MOULSLEY 1 Appeal 2017-011349 Application 14/969,369 Technology Center 2600 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD, JR., JASON V. MORGAN, and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges. MORGAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-11, 13-28, 30-44, and 46-49. Claims 12, 29, and 45 are canceled. App. Br. 18, 21, 24. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b ). We REVERSE. 1 Appellant is the applicant, Koninklijke Philips N.V., identified in the Appeal Brief as the real party in interest. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2017-011349 Application 14/969,369 Invention The Specification discloses a "control method for a communication network that has a transmitter with an array of transmit antennas and that has at least one receiver communicating with the transmitter." Abstract. The Specification discloses embodiments that include the "step of determining a measure of uncertainty of the channel component coefficients in the transform domain at the receiver after applying the linear and reversible orthogonal transform to the channel coefficients." Spec. 7; see also id. at 9-- 11, 14, 16, 30. Illustrative Claim (key limitations emphasized) 1. A method performed by a wireless apparatus for developing a feedback signal comprising: developing a quantized version of an angular-domain response amplitude vector of channel between a transmitter having a plurality of transmit antennas and a receiver, wherein an absolute value of one or more channel components of the angular-domain response amplitude vector in the angular domain is indicative of a magnitude in a particular angular direction; transmitting as the feedback signal, information indicative of at least one selected point of the angular-domain response amplitude vector of the channel and information related to a magnitude of the at least one selected point, wherein the information of the feedback signal is useable by the transmitter to construct a beam pattern in a transform domain; and determining a measure of uncertainty of the channel components. References and Rejections The Examiner rejects claims 1---6, 8-11, 13-23, 25-28, 30-39, 41--44, and 46--49 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Maltsev et 2 Appeal 2017-011349 Application 14/969,369 al. (US 2005/0287978 Al; published Dec. 29, 2005) ("Maltsev") and Hudson (US 2002/0176485 Al; published Nov. 28, 2002). Final Act. 4--11. The Examiner rejects claims 7, 24, and 40 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpateable over Maltsev, Hudson, and Hottinen (US 2006/0094373 Al; published May 4, 2006). Final Act. 11-12. ANALYSIS In rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a), the Examiner finds Hudson's "[s]election of the N most significant taps" from a channel impulse response renders obvious determining a measure of uncertainty of the channel components. Final Act. 5 (citing Hudson i-f 66). Specifically, the Examiner finds that "taps which are not selected" represent a "determination of [a] measure of uncertainty (error) of the channel components." Ans. 3. Appellant contends the Examiner erred because the cited paragraph of Hudson merely "acknowledges that there is some error" in retained tap values (e.g., thermal noise or channel interference) (App. Br. 9) and teaches that using only the most significant taps mitigates the compounding of errors (id. at 13). Appellant argues that merely limiting error in this manner falls short of determining a measure of error. See Reply Br. 3 ("one can limit the error without determining a measure of what the error is"). We agree with Appellant the Examiner erred. Hudson illustrates that the selection of the most significant taps merely identifies and uses the taps having the largest magnitudes. See Hudson Fig. 3. This selection "simply force[s] lesser taps to ... zero." Id. i-f 66. That is, rather than analyzing the lesser taps to estimate, for example, how uncertain the retained taps are, Hudson merely teaches throwing away their values. See Reply Br. 4. We 3 Appeal 2017-011349 Application 14/969,369 agree with Appellant that throwing out taps merely limits error and does not render obvious calculating the value of that error (i.e., determining a measure of uncertainty). Id. at 3--4. Therefore, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner's findings do not persuasively show Hudson renders obvious "determining a measure of uncertainty of the channel components," as recited in claim 1. The Examiner does not rely on the other cited references to cure the noted deficiency of Hudson. Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) rejection ofclaim 1, or the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) rejections of claims 2-11, 13-28, 30--44, and 46--49, which contain the same or similar recitations. DECISION We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-11, 13-28, 30--44, and 46--49. REVERSED 4