Ex Parte Wu

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 29, 2013

11564298 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 29, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte CHIH-HSIANG WU
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Appeal 2010-008452
Application 11/564,298
Technology Center 2400
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Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, CAROLYN D. THOMAS,
and JOHN A. EVANS, Administrative Patent Judges.

RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claim 1, the only claim pending in this application. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner,
we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed May 19, 2009), the latest Answer (Dec.
22, 2009), and the latest Reply Brief (filed Feb. 10, 2010). We have
considered in this decision only those arguments Appellant actually raised in
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Application 11/564,298

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the Briefs. Any other arguments which Appellant could have made but
chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. §
41.37(c)(1)(iv).

Appellant’s Invention
Appellant’s invention relates to handling a Move Receive Window
(MRW) timer after a Radio Link Control (RLC) re-establishment in a
wireless communication system. See generally Abstract.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
1. A method for handling a Timer_MRW timer in a wireless
communications system, the method comprising the steps of:
starting the Timer_MRW timer for a Radio Link Control
Acknowledged Mode (RLC AM) entity;
performing a re-establishment procedure for the RLC AM entity; and
stopping the Timer_MRW timer after re-establishment of the RLC
AM entity.

The Examiner’s Rejection
The Examiner’s Answer cites the following prior art references:
Vialen US 2001/0018342 A1 Aug. 30, 2001
3GPP TS 25.322 V3.11.0, 3RD GENERATION PARTNERSHIP PROJECT;
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION GROUP RADIO ACCESS NETWORK; RADIO LINK
CONTROL (RLC) PROTOCOL SPECIFICATION (RELEASE 1999) (2002)
[hereinafter 3GPP].
Claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Vialen in view of 3GPP.1

1 The 3GPP document is incorporated by reference in Vialen.
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ANALYSIS
At the outset, we note that the Examiner has relied upon Vialen for a
teaching of performing a re-establishment procedure for a Radio Link
Control Acknowledged Mode (RLC AM entity after connections are lost
(Ans. 3). Additionally, the Examiner (Ans. 9) has relied upon the 3GPP
Standard (incorporated by reference within Vialen) for a teaching of
resetting state variables to their initial value after re-establishment (Section
9.7.7), and the use of a Timer_MRW timer (Section 9.5) to trigger
retransmission of a status report (STATUS PDUs).
According to the Examiner, since the state variables in the RLC AM
entity of Vialen/3GPP are reset to their initial values after re-establishment,
there would be no functional need for a status report since there would be no
missing Protocol Display Units (PDUs). In the Examiner’s view, therefore,
the stopping of the MRW_Timer timer in Vialen/3GPP would be an obvious
expedient (Ans. 9).
Appellant contends that the Examiner’s position is based upon
improper hindsight reliance on the teachings of Appellant’s own disclosure
(App. Br. 4-5). We do not agree. We find that the Examiner’s analysis,
discussed supra, provides an articulated line of reasoning with a rational
underpinning to support the conclusion of obviousness. The Supreme Court
has held that in analyzing an obviousness rationale, a court need not find
specific teachings, but rather may consider “the background knowledge
possessed by a person having ordinary skill in the art” and “the inferences
and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ.”
KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007).
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We further find that Appellant’s arguments during prosecution of this
application actually support the Examiner’s ultimate determination of the
obviousness of the claimed invention. At page 3 of the response filed
January 7, 2009, Appellant makes the point, repeated at page 4 of the Appeal
Brief, that the known alternatives to handling the Timer_MRW timer after a
RLC AM re-establishment procedure are to STOP, RESTART, or
SUSPEND.
We note that the Supreme Court has held that, when there are a finite
number of known identified, predictable solutions, ordinarily skilled artisans
would have had a good reason to pursue the known options within their
grasp, see KSR, at 421. Accordingly, we find that the choice of stopping the
Timer_MRW timer in Vialen/3GPP instead of the other known alternatives
of restarting or suspending the Timer_MRW timer would have been obvious
to the ordinarily skilled artisan and would have yielded predictable results.
We also find that, although Vialen does not explicitly discuss Timer_MRW
timers, Vialen’s disclosure that timers involved in the re-establishment
procedure are stopped after re-establishment is completed further supports
the Examiner’s determination of obviousness (Fig. 3; ¶ 0065).
Lastly, we find Appellant’s arguments in the Reply Brief unpersuasive
of any error in the Examiner’s determination of obviousness with respect to
the stopping of the Timer_MRW timer after a re-establishment procedure.
Appellant directs attention to the fact that 3GPP discloses that other timers,
in particular, the Timer_Status_Periodic timer, are not stopped after re-
establishment is completed (Reply Br. 2). We do not find that the stopping
of other timers in 3GPP after re-establishment is conclusive as to the issue of
the stopping of the particular claimed Timer_MRW timer.
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We also find unpersuasive Appellant’s further contention that 3GPP
only discloses the starting of the Timer_MRW timer based on transmission
status, not stopping the Timer_MRW timer (Reply Br. 3). There is no
dispute that 3GPP does not explicitly disclose stopping the Timer_MRW
timer after re-establishment; however, the issue before us is one of
obviousness, not anticipation.
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of
independent claim 1 is sustained.

CONCLUSION OF LAW
Based on the analysis above, we conclude that the Examiner did not
err in rejecting claim 1 for obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a).
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) (2010).

AFFIRMED

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