DEUTSCHE TELEKOM AG

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jun 26, 2020

14888940 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jun. 26, 2020)

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.
14/888,940 11/04/2015 Olaf ZINGLER 815035 6116
95683 7590 06/26/2020
Leydig, Voit & Mayer, Ltd. (Frankfurt office)
Two Prudential Plaza, Suite 4900
180 North Stetson Avenue
Chicago, IL 60601-6731
EXAMINER
ELHAG, MAGDI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2641
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/26/2020 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):
chgpatent@leydig.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte OLAF ZINGLER and AXEL KLATT
Appeal 2019-002558
Application 14/888,940
Technology Center 2600
Before ALLEN R. MACDONALD, JEREMY J. CURCURI, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.
BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 4, 5, 7–9, 11, 12, and 14–16. We
heard oral argument on June 10, 2020. A transcript will be made of record
in due course. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as
Deutsche Telekom AG. Appeal Br. 1.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to an improved cell selection/reselection by
user equipment trying to camp on a radio cell of a public land mobile
network. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A method for cell selection and/or cell reselection
handling by a user equipment attempting to connect to a public
land mobile network using a random access channel of a base
station entity, wherein the public land mobile network comprises
a first radio cell with a first base station entity and a second radio
cell with a second base station entity, the method comprising:
performing, by the user equipment, a cell selection and/or
cell reselection procedure wherein both the first radio cell and
the second radio cell fulfill a cell selection criterion with the first
radio cell being prioritized relative to the second radio cell;
attempting, by the user equipment, to connect to the public
land mobile network using a random access channel of the first
base station entity, and failing to connect to the public land
mobile network using the random access channel of the first base
station entity; and
performing, by the user equipment, a modified cell
selection and/or cell reselection procedure, under unchanged
radio conditions regarding the first base station entity, the second
base station entity, and the user equipment, whereby the user
equipment attempts to connect to the public land mobile network
using a random access channel of the second base station entity;
wherein performing the modified cell selection and/or cell
reselection procedure further comprises: applying a penalty
information with respect to the first radio cell so as to lower a
priority of the first radio cell relative to a priority of the second
radio cell, wherein the penalty information comprises an offset
information, and wherein applying the penalty information
reduces at least one of the following values with respect to the
first radio cell:
-- the cell selection RX level value (Srxlev),
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-- the cell selection quality value (Squal),
-- the measured cell RX level value (RSRP), or
-- the measured cell quality value (RSRQ):
wherein the penalty information is transmitted from the
first base station entity to the user equipment.
Appeal Br. 12 (Claims Appendix).
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:

Name Reference Date
Choi US 9,008,659 B1 Apr. 14, 2015
Yeo US 2006/0084443 A1 Apr. 20, 2006
Somasundaram US 2008/0220784 A1 Sept. 11, 2008
REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 4, 5, 7–9, 11, 12, 14, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Yeo and Somasundaram. Non-Final Act.
9–16.
Claim 16 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Yeo, Somasundaram, and Choi. Non-Final Act. 16–17.
ISSUES
First Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Yeo teaches or
otherwise suggests “applying a penalty information with respect to the first
radio cell so as to lower a priority of the first radio cell,” as recited in claim
1?
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Second Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding that a person of
ordinary skill in the art would have combined the teachings of Yeo and
Somasundaram to achieve the invention recited in claim 1?
Third Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Yeo and
Somasundaram teach or suggest “the penalty information is transmitted from
the first base station entity to the user equipment,” as recited in claim 1?
ANALYSIS
First Issue
The Examiner rejects claim 1 as obvious over Yeo and
Somasundaram. The Examiner relies primarily on Yeo, finding that it
teaches or suggests each limitation except for the specific signal quality
values reduced by the penalty information. Relevant to this issue, the
Examiner finds that Yeo teaches the recited “applying a penalty information
with respect to the first radio cell so as to lower a priority of the first radio
cell,” because it describes adding a temporary offset for the first radio cell to
make it more difficult to reselect the cell. Non-Final Act. 10–11 (citing Yeo
¶¶ 62, 90).
Appellant argues Yeo is deficient because “Yeo does not explain what
the offset is or what it is applied to, and from context, it appears that Yeo’s
offset is directed to a temporal limitation on reselection.” Appeal Br. 6.
Appellant further argues:
Yeo describes ranking cells only with respect to choosing
a best cell (see element 50 of Yeo Fig. 4 and Yeo [0090]),
followed by using a previously unsuccessful reselection attempt
of a cell to determine whether selecting that cell should be barred
based on a previous failure (see element 52 of Yeo Fig. 4 and
Yeo [0090]). Although Yeo [0062] mentions “[a]dding a
temporary offset for that cell to make it more difficult to reselect
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this cell,” this step of adding a temporary offset is one of four
options with respect to temporally blocking reselection after
initial selection of the cell.
Appeal Br. 7.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments. Yeo describes a cell
reselection methodology in which “the MS takes into consideration during
cell reselection evaluation and candidate-cell selection, whether the MS had
previously been unsuccessful in reselecting the considered cell. This means
treating neighbor cells to which the MS had failed reselection before with a
lower priority in subsequent cell reselection evaluations.” Yeo, Abstract;
see also Yeo ¶ 49. Yeo teaches that cell reselection can fail for various
reasons, among them “[t]he cell is too weak (a cell selection criterion is not
fulfilled).” Yeo ¶ 56. When a failure occurs, data about the failure is stored,
which is used for subsequent cell reselection evaluations. Yeo ¶ 60. Yeo
teaches four different uses for the data, including “[a]dding a temporary
offset for that cell to make it more difficult to reselect to this cell.” Yeo
¶ 62.
Appellant contends Yeo is deficient in that it does not provide details
regarding the nature of the offset. Appellant asserts that because the other
three uses for the data are temporal in nature, the “temporary offset” is an
offset in timing and not a change to any signal quality measurement value.
We disagree. We agree with the Examiner that a person of ordinary skill in
the art would have understood Yeo paragraph 62 example of a “temporary
offset” to be a change in some value which would “make it more difficult to
reselect this cell.” Yeo demonstrates that it was known for cell reselection
to be based on “radio based criteria” including “received signal code power
(RSCP)” which provides a cell ranking. Yeo ¶ 3; see also Yeo ¶ 90.
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Understanding that reselection may be based on radio-based criteria, it
follows that an ordinarily skilled artisan would have understood than offset
to make it difficult to reselect a cell would have modified a radio-based
criterion to achieve this effect.
We also do not find persuasive Appellant’s argument that the “step of
adding a temporary offset is one of four options with respect to temporally
blocking reselection after initial selection of the cell.” Appeal Br. 7.
Appellant argues that Yeo would need to remove step 52 for the Examiner’s
reading of Yeo to make sense because the temporary offset would occur
only after an initial reselection already has been made. Tr. 14:12–15.
However, this incorrectly assumes that only a single reselection attempt is
made. The temporary offset taught by Yeo would remain in effect during a
subsequent reselection procedure begun after the initial reselection
procedure terminates without a successful reselection. That is, when the
process depicted in Figure 4 arrives at step 74, and temporary offset is added
so as to “better identify the cell uniquely to prevent further access to it for a
certain time,” the process would then return to step 50 for another selection
to be made which accounts for the offset value.
Second Issue
As noted above, the Examiner relies primarily on Yeo, but adds the
teachings of Somasundaram as teaching the specific signal quality indicator
values recited in the claim. Non-Final Act. 12 (citing Somasundaram ¶¶ 3–
7). In combining their respective teachings, the Examiner finds:
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the
art before the effective filing date of the invention to use different
known received signal indicators and/or signal quality values in
the selection/reselection process so as to enable deployment of
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the process in various intended communications systems that
may be using different parameters for measuring the cell signal
power or quality and/or different measurement techniques as
suggested by Soma above.
Non-Final Act. 12; see also Somasundaram ¶¶ 3–7.
Appellant argues it would not have been obvious to combine the
teachings of Somasundaram with those of Yeo because “Yeo is directed to
selecting a best cell . . . followed by applying a temporary bar after-the-fact”
while “Soma . . . is directed to attempting to select the best cell while at the
same time trying to avoid undesirable oscillations . . . by using offset and
hysteresis.” Appeal Br. 7–8.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument against the
combination of references because it does not address the reasoning
provided by the Examiner. We find the Examiner’s rationale for combining
Yeo and Somasundaram to be reasonable on its face, consistent with
controlling law, and has rational underpinnings drawn from evidence in the
record. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007)
(“[T]here must be some articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.” (quoting In re
Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006))); see also Somasundaram ¶¶ 3–7.
Third Issue
Claim 1 additionally recites the limitation “wherein the penalty
information is transmitted from the first base station entity to the user
equipment.” Appeal Br. 12 (Claims Appendix). The Examiner finds this
limitation taught by Yeo’s transmitting information about how the mobile
device should handle cells subject to the temporary offset from the network
to the mobile device. Non-Final Act. 11 (citing Yeo ¶¶ 65–67).
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Appellant argues the Examiner has erred because the cited paragraphs
in Yeo merely “correspond[] to the network information the mobile station
that access is denied.” Appeal Br. 8. According to Appellant, “[i]nforming
a mobile station that access to a network is denied . . . is not the same as
transmission of penalty information which is used in cell prioritization.” Id.
We are not persuaded of error. Yeo teaches that “the information
about how the MS shall handle such cells can be . . . [i]informing the
behavior in the system information sent by the network to the MS.” Yeo
¶¶ 65, 67. The “information about how the MS shall handle such cells”
includes the temporary offset information. Thus, Yeo teaches that
temporary offset information is transmitted from the network (i.e., the base
station) to the mobile device.
Appellant argues the information that is passed merely indicates that
access to a network has been denied. We disagree because Yeo indicates
that the information transmitted is intended to convey how the mobile station
should handle cells for which reselection failed, and not merely that the
reselection failure occurred. How such failures are handled includes the
offset information, which, as we discussed supra, corresponds to the recited
“penalty information.”
Because we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1,
we sustain the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Remaining Claims
Appellant does not present separate arguments for patentability of any
other claim. Therefore, we also sustain the rejections of the remaining
claims under § 103.
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CONCLUSION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections.
More specifically:
We affirm the rejection of claims 1, 4, 5, 7–9, 11, 12, 14, and 15 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Yeo and Somasundaram.
We affirm the rejection of claim 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Yeo, Somasundaram, and Choi.

DECISION SUMMARY
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 4, 5, 7–9,
11, 12, 14,
15
103 Yeo,
Somasundaram
1, 4, 5, 7–9,
11, 12, 14,
15

16 103 Yeo,
Somasundaram,
Choi
16
Overall
Outcome
1, 4, 5, 7–9,
11, 12, 14–
16

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED