Ex Parte Chen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 9, 2016

13511185 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 9, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/511,185 05/22/2012
48116 7590
FAY SHARPE/LUCENT
1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor
The Halle Building
Cleveland, OH 44115-1843
09/13/2016
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Yu Chen
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.
LUTZ 201443U01 4871
EXAMINER
CHAKRABORTY,RAJARSHI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2648
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/13/2016 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):
docketing@faysharpe.com
ipsnarocp@nokia.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte YU CHEN, BIJUN ZHANG, and THORSTEN WILD
Appeal2016-002321
Application 13/511, 185
Technology Center 2600
Before JON M. JURGOV AN, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and
MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges.
LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner's final rejection of claims 1, 2, and 4--19, the only claims pending
in the application on appeal. Claim 3 has been canceled. See App. Br. 21
(Claims App'x). We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm-in-part.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Alcatel Lucent. App.
Br. 2.
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Application 13/511,185
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants 'Invention
Appellants' invention generally relates to cooperative
communications between mobile stations. Spec. 1: 10-11. The mobile
stations, which can communicate wirelessly with a base station using a first
transmission technology, form a cooperating cluster, and use a second,
different transmission technology for performing short-range
communications between the mobile stations. Spec. 2:21-27. Claims 1, 16,
and 17, which are representative, read as follows:
1. A method for communications in a cellular network
comprising a plurality of mobile stations adapted for performing
wireless communications with at least one base station using a
first transmission technology, the method comprising:
forming a cooperating cluster comprising two or more of
the mobile stations,
wherein, for forming the cooperating cluster at least
one mobile station[ ]requests2 cooperation with at least
one further mobile station, the further mobile station
accepting or rejecting the request, based on an approval or
disapproval of a user of the further mobile station, or a
velocity of the further mobile station; and
performing short-range communications between the
mobile stations of the cooperating cluster using a second
transmission technology being different from the first
transmission technology for improving, for at least one mobile
station of the cluster, the performance of the wireless
communications with the base station, by using MIMO
techniques for at least one of interference suppression and
cancellation, by using at least one of transmit pre-coding for
2 The hyphen in the phrase "at least one mobile station-requests
cooperation" appears to be a typographical error, and for purposes of this
decision, we have treated the hyphen as if it were instead a space.
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uplink transmissions and receive antenna weighting for downlink
reception.
16. The method according to claim 1, wherein the further
mobile station accepts or rejects the request to join the
cooperating cluster based on an approval or disapproval of a user
at the time the request is submitted to the user.
1 7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the user of the
further mobile station accepts or rejects the request to join the
cooperating cluster based on user settings programmed by the
user in the mobile station.
Rejections
Claims 1, 4---6, 8, 10-12, and 14--19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 (a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Oyman et al. (US
2008/0014884 Al; published Jan. 17, 2008) ("Oyman") and Gorday et al.
(US 6,665,521 Bl; issued Dec. 16, 2003) ("Gorday"). Final Act. 3-11.
Claims 2 and 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Oyman, Gorday, and Yang et al. (US
2007/0037563 Al; published Feb. 15, 2007) ("Yang"). Final Act. 11-12.
Claims 7 and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Oyman, Gorday, and Ijiri (US
2008/0043715 Al; published Feb. 21, 2008). Final Act. 12-13.
Issues on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Oyman and
Gorday teaches or suggests "wherein, for forming the cooperating cluster at
least one mobile station requests cooperation with at least one further mobile
station, the further mobile station accepting or rejecting the request, based on
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an approval or disapproval of a user of the further mobile station, or a
velocity of the further mobile station," as recited in claim 1?
Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Oyman and
Gorday teaches or suggests "wherein the further mobile station accepts or
rejects the request to join the cooperating cluster based on an approval or
disapproval of a user at the time the request is submitted to the user," as
recited in claim 16?
Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Oyman and
Gorday teaches or suggests "wherein the user of the further mobile station
accepts or rejects the request to join the cooperating cluster based on user
settings programmed by the user in the mobile station," as recited in claim
17?
ANALYSIS
Appellants do not substantively argue claims 1, 2, and 4--15
separately, but instead rely on the same arguments for all of these claims.
App. Br. 10-16; Reply Br. 8-9. We select claim 1 as representative of this
group, and claims 2 and 4--15 stand or fall with claim 1. 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv). Appellants present additional arguments for patentability
of claims 16-19. App. Br. 16-18; Reply Br. 9-11. We address these
arguments below under separate subheadings.
Claims 1, 2, and 4-15
The Examiner finds (Final Act. 2---6) Oyman teaches the limitations of
claim 1, except the Examiner finds "Oyman et al. does not explicitly teach
one wireless device accepting or rejecting an invitation to join a cluster
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based on specific parameters" (Final Act. 5 (emphasis omitted)). As to that
limitation, the Examiner relies on Gorday. Id. 5---6 (citing Gorday 2:22--45;
5 :23-24; Fig. 1 ). In particular, the Examiner finds:
Gorday et al. teaches a communication cooperative network
wherein wireless devices and users agree to form a cooperative
network. As shown in Fig. 1 and described in column 2 lines 22-
30, Gorday et al. teaches a User A or wireless device 29 has
discovered that there are multiple potential diversity partners
within range. The user or wireless device and potential partners
can then decide to form a cooperative diversity network via an
established protocol. Further in column 5 lines 23 and 24,
Gorday et al. teaches that a group of walking users moving down
a city sidewalk can benefit from forming a cooperative diversity
network.
Id. (emphasis omitted).
Appellants contend the Examiner's findings regarding the teachings of
Gorday are in error because "Gorday appears silent regarding any decisions
about acceptance or rejection of a request to join a cooperative network,
whether by a device or by a user of the device." App. Br. 11. Appellants
contend:
[P]ersons of ordinary skill in the art would have viewed Gorday
as ( 1) silent regarding any such decision by a unit (or by a
corresponding user) to refuse to join a cooperative network, and
as (2) merely using "User A or wireless device 29" (column 2,
line 23) and "wireless device 20 (User A)" (column 2, line 27) as
a descriptive shorthand, rather than in any way suggesting that a
user of the wireless device 29 makes any decisions regarding
acceptance or refusal to join a cooperative network.
App. Br. 13.
Appellants further contend the system of Gorday does not inherently
perform the disputed limitation. App. Br. 14. Appellants contend:
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[T]he Examiner fails to show that the mobile devices of Gorday
must necessarily require a user to program particular settings into
a mobile device with respect to acceptance or rejection of a
request to join a cooperative network. Accordingly, the inherent
teaching assertion in the Final Action is unsupported.
Furthermore, the system of Gorday would clearly work without
such a feature, for example, with all mobile units being
programmed during manufacturing to automatically join any
cooperative network for which a request is received, with or
without a restriction based on range, independent of any user
approval or disapproval, and independent of any user-
programmable parameters.
App. Br. 14.
We do not find Appellants' contentions persuasive. As found by the
Examiner (Ans. 3), Gorday teaches that "[u]sing the secondary protocol,
wireless device 20 (User A) and one or more of the potential partners (22,
24, 26 or 28) agree to form a cooperative diversity network." Gorday 2:27-
29 (emphasis added). Gorday further teaches "[b ]y voluntarily forming
cooperative netvvorks using the secondary protocol, the mobile units or
wireless devices would improve the link reliability and minimize
retransmission traffic on the primary protocol." Gorday 4: 5 8---61 (emphasis
added). As such, Gorday teaches or suggests that forming a cooperative
cluster requires the voluntary approval of each mobile unit or wireless
device prior to the cooperative cluster being formed. See Webster's Ninth
New Collegiate Dictionary 65 (1990) (defining agree as "to settle on by
common consent"). Figures 1 and 2 of Gorday indicate that a user is
associated with each device forming a cooperative network. We also note
that Appellants have not sufficiently addressed the Examiner's finding that
"[a] user, as claimed in appellant's claims, can be interpreted to mean (a) a
human user of a mobile station or (b) an application or system that is
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operating on the mobile station." Ans. 3. As such, Gorday teaches, or at
least suggests, "wherein, for forming the cooperating cluster at least one
mobile station requests cooperation with at least one further mobile station,
the further mobile station accepting or rejecting the request, based on an
approval or disapproval of a user of the further mobile station, or a velocity
of the further mobile station," as recited in claim 1.
Additionally, we note that claim 1 recites an alternative in which the
claimed "accepting or rejecting" can instead involve "a velocity of the
further mobile station."3 As discussed by Appellants (App. Br. 14--15),
Gorday teaches that a cooperative cluster may be formed when several
vehicles are traveling along a highway at similar speeds and are in close
enough proximity to permit establishment of a secondary protocol network
( Gorday 5: 17-19) and also when a group of walking users are walking down
a city sidewalk (Gorday 5:23-24). Gorday, therefore, teaches or suggests
accepting or rejecting a request to form a cooperative cluster based on a
velocity of the further mobile station.
3 Claim 1 recites "the further mobile station accepting or rejecting the
request, based on an approval or disapproval of a user of the further mobile
station, or a velocity of the further mobile station." Thus, as written, claim 1
requires accepting or rejecting either (A) the request or (B) a velocity of the
further mobile station. The Examiner may consider in the first instance
whether accepting or rejecting a velocity is indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112.
Solely for purposes of this decision, we assume the comma included in the
phrase "further mobile station, or a velocity of the further mobile station" to
be a typographical error and, therefore, construe claim 1 (and claim 8, which
recites similar limitations) as requiring the acceptance or rejection of the
request to be based on (A) an approval or disapproval of a user of the further
mobile station or (B) a velocity of the further mobile station.
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Claims 16 and 18
Appellants contend the combination of Oyman and Gorday fails to
teach or suggest "wherein the further mobile station accepts or rejects the
request to join the cooperating cluster based on an approval or disapproval
of a user at the time the request is submitted to the user," as recited in claim
16, and similarly recited in claim 18. App. Br. 16-17; Reply Br. 9-11. In
particular, Appellants contend Gorday, upon which the Examiner relies for
teaching this limitation, is silent regarding this limitation, and that the
Examiner fails to cite any teaching in any reference regarding acceptance or
rejection of a request to join a cooperating cluster based on an approval or
disapproval of the user at the time the request is submitted. Id.
We are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments for reasons similar to
claim 1. Like claim 1, the Examiner relies upon Gorday' s teaching of
forming a voluntary cooperative network. Final Act. 9 (citing Gorday 2 :22-
30, Fig. 1 ). The Examiner also relies on Gorday' s example of "a group of
walking users moving down a city sidewalk" who "can benefit from forming
a cooperative diversity network." Id. (citing Gorday 5:23-24). A person
walking down a sidewalk is unlikely to know in advance who else will
happen to be on the same sidewalk at the same time, so approval to join a
voluntary cluster is unlikely to be provided in advance of receiving a
request. On the other hand, a person walking down a sidewalk cannot delay
too long before approving to join a voluntary cluster or else the other users
will have moved out of range (e.g., turning a comer, entering a building, or
walking the opposite direction). Thus, given the Examiner's findings
regarding Gorday teaching or suggesting "agreeing" to join a "voluntary"
network, Appellants have not sufficiently persuaded us that it would be non-
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obvious to accept or reject the request to join the cooperating cluster based
on an approval or disapproval of a user at the time the request is submitted to
the user.
Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 16 and claim 18, which recites corresponding limitations and is argued
together with claim 16. See App. Br. 16-17; Reply Br. 9-11.
Claims 17 and 19
Appellants contend the combination of Oyman and Gorday fails to
teach or suggest "wherein the user of the further mobile station accepts or
rejects the request to join the cooperating cluster based on user settings
programmed by the user in the mobile station," as recited in claim 17, and
similarly recited in claim 19. App. Br. 17-18; Reply Br. 9-11. In particular,
Appellants contend Gorday, upon which the Examiner relies for teaching
this limitation, is silent regarding this limitation, and that the Examiner fails
to cite any teaching in any reference regarding acceptance or rejection of a
request to join a cooperating cluster based on user settings programmed by
the user in the mobile station. Id.
We find Appellants' contentions persuasive. As discussed supra, we
find Gorday teaches or suggests accepting or rejecting a request to join a
cooperative cluster based on an approval or disapproval of a user. However,
we agree with Appellants that the Examiner fails to make any specific
finding regarding the teachings of the references with respect to the
acceptance or the disapproval being based on user settings programmed by
the user in the mobile station. Instead, the Examiner finds:
[T]here is no claim language in the instant application that
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clarifies when (i.e. at what time frame) a human user actually
approves or disapproves of joining a cooperative network. That
is, it is not clear whether the user approves or disapproves of
joining a cooperative network instantaneously in real-time,
immediately upon receiving a request or whether the user
approves or disapproves of joining a cooperative network via a
preset setting during/after the manufacture of the mobile station.
Ans. 7. Claims 17 and 19 expressly require the mobile station to accept or
reject the request to join the cooperating cluster based on user settings
programmed by the user in the mobile station, and claim 19 more
specifically requires a "pre-programmed" setting. As such, the Examiner
fails to adequately support a finding that the combination of Oyman and
Gorday teaches or suggests every limitation recited in claims 17 and 19 and,
therefore, we are constrained by the record to not sustain the Examiner's
rejection of these claims.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 2, 4--16, and 18.
We reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 17 and 19.
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-IN-PART
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