10987944 (P.T.A.B. May. 28, 2014)

Ex Parte Charriere et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 28, 2014

10987944 (P.T.A.B. May. 28, 2014)

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. 10/987,944 11/12/2004 Patrick Georges Charriere 2100.014700 8413 46290 7590 05/28/2014 WILLIAMS MORGAN, P.C. 10333 RICHMOND, SUITE 1100 HOUSTON, TX 77042 EXAMINER LEE, JUSTIN YE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2644 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/28/2014 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 PATRICK GEORGES CHARRIERE, FANG-CHEN CHENG, and PHILIP CHARLES SAPIANO ____________________ Appeal 2011-009621 Application 10/987,944 Technology Center 2600 ____________________ Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-009621 Application 10/987,944 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1-15. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. The claims are directed to fast handover with reduced service interruption for high speed data channels in a wireless system. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for controlling a communications system, comprising: monitoring, at a mobile unit having an active communication session with a first base station, a quality of a first packet data channel between the mobile unit and the first base station and a quality of a second packet data channel between the mobile unit and each of one or more second base stations; deciding, at the mobile unit, to perform a hard hand off from the first base station to a selected one of said second base stations using a comparison of the monitored qualities of the first and second packet data channels; and transmitting, from the mobile unit, a level-1 type handoff signal that originates in a physical layer of the mobile unit and indicates that the selected second base station is a new primary base station. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Baba Kim US 2002/0141360 A1 US 6,757,536 B1 Oct. 3, 2002 Jun. 29, 2004 Kroboth US 2006/0068712 A1 Mar. 30, 2006 Appeal 2011-009621 Application 10/987,944 3 Vannithamby US 2006/0068789 A1 Mar. 30, 2006 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1, 5-8, 12, and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kim and Baba. Claims 2-4 and 9-11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kim, Baba, and Vannithamby. Claims 14 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C §103(a) as being unpatentable over Kim, Baba, and Kroboth. ANALYSIS The Examiner finds that Kim discloses every limitation of claim 1 except for performing a hard handoff, but relies on Baba for disclosing this feature (Ans. 5). Appellants contend “neither Kim nor Baba teaches or suggests a mobile unit that is capable of deciding whether to perform a hard hand off from a selected base station to a new primary base station” (Br. 8). We agree with Appellants. Baba discloses that during a soft handoff “[t]o reduce the degradation in efficiency, the base station attempts to stop forwarding duplicate packets when possible. That means the network layer soft handoff becomes a conventional network layer hard handoff from the mobile station’s point of view and seamless IP communication during the handoff becomes a problem again.” (Baba, ¶ 0057). Baba then proposes a solution where “the network layer soft handoff is used for the reverse direction to help the network layer hard handoff (i.e. current handoff scheme) in the forward direction” (Baba, ¶ 0058). However, it is clear in Baba that the hard handoff aspect of the Appeal 2011-009621 Application 10/987,944 4 transition between base stations is initiated by the host on the IP network, not the mobile station: In this method, the correspondent host continues to send packets to one destination IP address at one time. The mobile station MS sends acknowledgment packet . . . to the correspondent host. The acknowledgment packet is sent to the CH from all IP addresses assigned to the mobile station. . . . Next, the acknowledgment packet is investigated by the correspondent host . . . . Then the correspondent host . . . determines the working destination IP address from the investigation result. (Baba, ¶ 0058). Thus, the Examiner’s cited portion of Baba neither teaches nor would have suggested “deciding, at the mobile unit, to perform a hard hand off from the first base station to a selected one of said second base stations using a comparison of the monitored qualities of the first and second packet data channels” as recited in claim 1 (emphasis added). In response to Appellants’ arguments the Examiner merely repeats that “Baba teaches transmission of packet data and performing hand [sic] handoff (paragraph 57-58, hand [sic] handoff is performed)” (Ans. 13), without explaining why it would have been obvious for the mobile station to decide to perform a hard handoff rather than the base station making the decision. We are therefore constrained by the record to find the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claim 1, independent claim 8 which recites commensurate limitations, and dependent claims 2-7 and 9-15 for similar reasons. Appeal 2011-009621 Application 10/987,944 5 CONCLUSION The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-15 is reversed. REVERSED ELD