Ex Parte Ballakur et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 27, 201613740538 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 27, 2016) Copy Citation 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. 13/740,538 01/14/2013 Ravitej Ballakur P38801US1 1863 96750 7590 Patents on Demand, P.A. 4581 Weston Road, Suite 345 Weston, EL 33331 12/29/2016 EXAMINER VICTORIA, NARCISO F ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2498 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/29/2016 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): docketingl @patentsondemand.com docketing3 @patentsondemand.com docketing. eric sson @ thomsonreu ters .com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte RAVITEJ BALLAKUR, SAJAL KUMAR DAS, and SUYOG MOOGI Appeal 2016-001452 Application 13/740,538 Technology Center 2400 Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and JON M. JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judges. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 17, 18, 20-26, and 28—32.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson (Br. 2). 2 Claims 1—16 have been canceled. Claims 19 and 27 have been objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but otherwise contain allowable subject matter (see Ans. 15). Appeal 2016-001452 Application 13/740,538 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants’ invention relates to selective deciphering of received communications signals (Spec. 11). Exemplary claim 17 under appeal reads as follows: 17. A method of received signal processing at a wireless communication device comprising: demodulating a received communication signal and thereby obtaining soft bits as demodulation results; comparing the demodulation results to a characteristic pattern that is indicative of the communication signal not being ciphered for transmission; and controlling whether the demodulation results are decoded with or without deciphering, based on said step of comparing. The Examiner’s Rejections Claims 17 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Dhanda et al. (US 2012/0137125 Al; pub. May 31, 2012) (Ans. 2—4). Claims 18, 20—24, 26, and 28—32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Dhanda and Sikri et al. (US 2013/0225157 Al; pub. Aug. 29, 2013) (Ans. 4-15). ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’ conclusions. We adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken, and the reasons set 2 Appeal 2016-001452 Application 13/740,538 forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief. Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) Independent Claim 17 1. Obtaining Soft Bits as Demodulation Results Appellants contend Dhanda’s demodulated SACCH block (i.e., Fig. 8, Step 801) does not provide the wireless terminal with any sensible information until the block has been decoded (i.e., Step 804), and, thus, Dhanda does not perform soft bit analysis with respect to the demodulated data produced in Step 801 (Br. 9-12). Appellants further contend Dhanda does not discuss soft bits, Log Likelihood Ratios (“LLRs”), or any other aspect of processing that could disclose the claimed demodulation results (Br. 12-13). We are not persuaded of error in the rejection. We agree with the Examiner’s finding that, although the claim is interpreted in light of the specification, “obtaining soft bits” does not require “Log Likelihood Ratios” or any specific type of processing (Ans. 18—19 (citing In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184 (Fed. Cir. 1993))). See also In re Self 671 F.2d 1344, 1348 (CCPA 1982) (limitations not appearing in the claims cannot be relied upon for patentability). Appellants’ Specification discloses it is known in the wireless communication art that generation of “soft bits” is the result of received signal demodulation (Ans. 18—19 (citing Spec. 131)). Thus, under the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with Appellants’ disclosure, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Dhanda’s received signal, which comprises cipher mode data, SACCH control data, and SACCH user data 3 Appeal 2016-001452 Application 13/740,538 (Ans. 17—18 (citing Dhanda 1 58)), is demodulated to generate and store cipher mode “soft bits,” i.e., bits 2 and 3 of the cipher mode command signal (Ans. 2—3, 17—19 (citing Dhanda ]Hf 58—59, 70-71)). See In re Am. Acad, of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (“[T]he PTO is obligated to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation during examination.”). 2. Comparing the Demodulation Results to a Characteristic Pattern Appellants contend Dhanda’s wireless terminal does not autonomously determine whether SACCH data was ciphered based on characteristic patterns in the soft bit demodulation results, but, rather, makes the determination about ciphering with reference to an explicitly signaled Cipher Mode Setting indictor (Br. 9, 11—14). We are unpersuaded of Examiner error, and find claim 17 does not require the wireless terminal to “autonomously” determine whether the data was ciphered. See In re Self 671 F.2d at 1348. Thus, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that the broadest reasonable interpretation, consistent with Appellants’ disclosure, of “comparing the demodulation results to a characteristic pattern” does not preclude Dhanda’s comparing of demodulated soft bits (i.e., the cipher mode bits 2 and 3, as discussed supra) to a pattern of cipher mode settings that are indicative of whether the remaining parts of the SACCH communication signal are ciphered or not ciphered, and, based on the comparing, controlling whether the demodulation results of the SACCH are decoded with or without deciphering (Ans. 17—18 (citing Dhanda Fig. 8 and 58—59: Table 2, e.g., Bits (0,1) means data is un-ciphered; Bits (1,0) means a mixed mode of both ciphered and un-ciphered)). See In re Am. Acad, of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d at 1369. 4 Appeal 2016-001452 Application 13/740,538 Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Dhanda. Independent Claim 25 Appellants contend the claimed processing circuit is not a conventional processor as alleged by the Examiner, but, rather, requires specific, detailed configurations for determining whether to decode demodulation results with or without deciphering (Br. 15—16). For the reasons discussed with respect to claim 17 supra, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Dhanda discloses the claimed process for decoding demodulation results with or without deciphering (see Ans. 16—19) and a processing circuit specifically configured to perform the claimed process (Ans. 3—4, 17—19 (citing Dhanda 135; see also 147 (“The various functions may all be contained within a single processor circuit. . . .”))). Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Dhanda. Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) Appellants contend the Examiner erred in rejecting dependent claims 18, 20-24, 26, and 28—32 over the combination of Dhanda and Sikri, because Sikri does not teach determining whether a received communication was ciphered for transmission, and Sikri does not cure the deficiencies of Dhanda with respect to the independent claims (see Br. 16—24). Appellants’ contentions do not persuade us of error. As the Examiner properly states, nonobviousness cannot be established by attacking the references individually when the rejection is predicated upon a combination of prior art disclosures (Ans. 22 (citing In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981) 5 Appeal 2016-001452 Application 13/740,538 and In re Merck & Co. Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986))). As discussed supra with respect to claims 17 and 25, we agree with the Examiner’s findings related to Dhanda’s method of determining whether a received communication was ciphered for transmission (see Ans. 16—19), and we address Appellants’ specific contentions regarding the combination of Dhanda and Sikri in the following sections. Claims 18, 24, 26, and 32 Appellants contend the combination of Dhanda and Sikri does not teach decoding without deciphering when there is a level or threshold of correlation between certain soft bits in the demodulation results and a set of bit values comprising the characteristic pattern, because Dhanda does not teach correlating soft bits in the demodulation results, and the correlation taught by Sikri operates on the actual contents of the SACCH block and is not useable to determine whether ciphering was applied the block (Br. 17— 18, 22—24). The Examiner finds, and we agree, that Sikri teaches the concept of comparing incoming signal data to stored signal data and determining a threshold correlation between the data blocks (Ans. 5—6, 20— 21 (citing Sikri || 44-45)). We further agree with the Examiner’s finding that it would have been obvious to a skilled artisan to use Sikri’s concept of threshold-level correlation when comparing how similar Dhanda’s cipher mode soft bits are to the characteristic pattern of cipher mode settings, and to decode, using a processing circuit, without deciphering when the cipher mode soft bits correspond to such mode settings (Ans. 19—21, 26—28 (citing Dhanda 171 and Sikri || 44-45); see also Dhanda 159: Bits (0,1) indicate un-ciphered data). 6 Appeal 2016-001452 Application 13/740,538 Claims 20 and 28 Appellants contend Sikri is unrelated to determining whether the SACCH block was ciphered for transmission, and therefore, the combination of Dhanda and Sikri does not teach “obtaining the characteristic pattern by demodulating an earlier-received communication signal and saving soft bit values obtained therefrom” (Br. 18—20). We are unpersuaded by Appellants’ argument directed to Sikri individually (see In re Keller, 642 F.2d at 425), and we agree with the Examiner’s finding that, based on the combined teachings of Dhanda and Sikri, a skilled artisan would recognize the ability to obtain Dhanda’s characteristic cipher mode settings by saving earlier-received control settings, as taught by Sikri (Ans. 6, 21—22 (citing Sikri 1125)). Claims 21 and 29 Appellants’ argument that Sikri alone does not teach the claimed characteristic pattern (Br. 20-21) is not persuasive (see In re Keller, 642 F.2d at 425). We agree with the Examiner’s finding that the combination of Dhanda and Sikri teaches “obtaining the characteristic pattern from configuration data stored in the wireless communication device,” as Dhanda teaches configuring the cipher mode according to the characteristic cipher mode settings stored in the wireless device (Ans. 17—18, 23 (citing Dhanda 11 58—59)), and Sikri also teaches the concept of the wireless device storing control settings (Ans. 7, 23 (citing Sikri 1125)). Claims 22 and 30 We are not persuaded by Appellants’ contention that Sikri, individually, does not teach comparing the soft bits to “a set of bit values corresponding to fixed or known data in the communication signal” (Br. 21) 7 Appeal 2016-001452 Application 13/740,538 (see In re Keller, 642 F.2d at 425). As discussed with regard to the independent claims, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Dhanda teaches comparing the cipher mode soft bits to a set of characteristic cipher mode bit values (see Ans. 16—19), which correspond to fixed or known data in the communication signal, i.e., the locations of Dhanda’s bit values 2 and 3 are known (Ans. 17—18, 24—25 (citing Dhanda Tflf 58—59)). The combination of Sikri with Dhanda bolsters the Examiner’s position that it is known in the wireless arts to compare fixed data in a communication signal (Ans. 7—8 (citing Sikri 1125)). Claims 23 and 31 Regarding Appellants’ contention that the combination of Dhanda and Sikri does not teach “the detailed explanations seen in the filed Application at paragraphs [0031]—[0033] as to example characteristic patterns” (Br. 21— 22), the Examiner properly states that, although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims (Ans. 25—26 (citing In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d at 1184); see also In re Self, 671 F.2d at 1348). The Examiner finds, and we agree, that the combination of Dhanda and Sikri teaches a communication signal comprising a SACCH data block (Ans. 8 (citing Dhanda 170 and Sikri 1125)). We further agree that a skilled artisan would recognize the combined teachings of Dhanda and Sikri suggest the claimed characteristic pattern comprising “a characteristic pattern of bits that is known for a service access point identifier (SAPI) field of SACCH data blocks that convey System Information (SI),” as Dhanda’s cipher mode settings comprise system information, and Sikri teaches the concept of including SAPI information along with other system information in the SACCH. 8 Appeal 2016-001452 Application 13/740,538 (Ans. 8, 17—18 (citing Dhanda ]Hf 58—59 and Sikri 1125); see also Sikri 1130). Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 18, 20—24, 26, and 28—32 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Dhanda and Sikri. DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 17 and 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e). We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 18, 20—24, 26, and 28— 32 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)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 9 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation