Ex Parte Chen et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 21, 201612811893 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 21, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/811,893 07/07/2010 48116 7590 06/23/2016 FAY SHARPE/LUCENT 1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor The Halle Building 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 201137US01 2598 EXAMINER TRAN, THINHD Cleveland, OH 44115-1843 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2466 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/23/2016 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 PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte YU CHEN, HEW ANG, and YONGGANG WANG Appeal2015-001238 Application 12/811,893 Technology Center 2400 Before JOHN A. JEFFERY, BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, and DENISE M. POTHIER, Administrative Patent Judges. JEFFERY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-6, 8, 9, 11-15, 20, and 21. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appeal2015-001238 Application 12/811,893 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants' invention transmits and receives multimedia service data. Spec. 1. In a wireless access network, the Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS) supports multicasting and broadcasting of higher-rate services-such as mobile-phone television-and other lower-rate services. Id. A single Multicast Channel (MCH) may carry a several services. Id. at 5. But the user equipment (UE) may only want some of those services. See id. If the UE receives all services, including unwanted services, a large amount of power may be wasted. Id. To improve efficiency, the invention sends scheduling information to indicate a service's transmission occasion. Id. In particular, one embodiment provides each service's beginning sub- frame index and the transmission order of the services. Id. at 7. Claim 1, reproduced below with our emphasis, is illustrative: 1. A method for transmitting multimedia service data, comprising steps of: receiving transmission order information representing the order in which a plurality of multimedia services is to be transmitted; generating schedule information including the beginning indices of the plurality of multimedia services; and transmitting data of the plurality of multimedia services based on the transmission order information and the schedule information. THE REJECTION The Examiner rejected claims 1-6, 8, 9, 11-15, 20, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lee (US 2005/0213583 Al; 2 Appeal2015-001238 Application 12/811,893 published Sept. 29, 2005) and Yi (US 2004/0105402 Al; published June 3, 2004). Final Act. 3-7. 1 CONTENTIONS The Examiner finds that Lee discloses every recited element of claim 1 except for generating schedule information and transmitting data of the multimedia services based on this information, but cites Yi as teaching these excepted features in concluding that the claim would have been obvious. Final Act. 4. According to the Examiner, Lee's MBMS control information corresponds to the recited transmission order information. Id. (citing Lee i-f 19); see also Ans. 3 (citing Lee i-fi-119, 21-22). The Examiner finds that Lee's MBMS control information contains a session start. Ans. 3. Furthermore, the Examiner finds that Lee sends this information for two services. Id. In the Examiner's view, Lee's control information indicates when the first and second MBMS services start. Id. Appellants argue that Lee does not receive transmission order information as recited. Br. 5-7. According to Appellants, Lee's control information is not the same as the recited transmission order information. Id. at 7. Appellants contend that Lee's paragraph 19 does not mention a plurality of services. Id. Appellants further argue that Lee's paragraphs 21 and 22 do not discuss communicating or determining an order for the plurality of services. Id. In Appellants' view, Lee paragraphs 21 and 22 mention an MBMS 1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Final Rejection mailed April 5, 2013 ("Final Act."); (2) the Appeal Brief filed May 7, 2014 ("Br."); and (3) the Examiner's Answer mailed August 28, 2014 ("Ans."). 3 Appeal2015-001238 Application 12/811,893 control channel (MCCH) indication message, but this indication message lacks order information. Id. Appellants further argue that Yi lacks the receiving step, but acknowledge that the Examiner did not rely on Yi for this purpose. Id. at 7-8. ISSUE Under§ 103, has the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 by finding that Lee would have taught or suggested receiving transmission order information, as recited? ANALYSIS The Examiner's reliance on Yi is undisputed, as is the references' combinability. See id. at 5-8. Rather, this dispute hinges on the Examiner's findings regarding Lee and, in particular, whether Lee teaches receiving transmission order information, as recited in claim 1. Accordingly, we confine our discussion to Lee. We begin by construing the key disputed limitation of claim 1, which recites, in pertinent part, "transmission order information." In one disclosed embodiment, the transmission order information is an ordered list of services multiplexed onto the MCH. Spec. 7. But the invention is not limited to this specific embodiment. See id. at 13 (describing that the invention is not limited to the above embodiments). Although this non-limiting, exemplary embodiment informs our construction of the limitation at issue, Appellants do not point to, nor do we find, any definition of "transmission order 4 Appeal2015-001238 Application 12/811,893 information" to so limit our interpretation apart from its plain and ordinary meaning in the context of the claim. Claim 1 requires that the transmission order information represents a transmission order for multimedia services. But claim 1 places no further limitation on how this information is represented. Indeed, the information could be represented in a number of ways, including among other things, Lee's control information (Lee i-f 19, cited in Final Act. 4). Specifically, Lee's UTRAN2 6 provides the MBMS service to UEs using the MBMS Traffic Channel (MTCH) Lee i-fi-117-18. By contrast, UTRAN 6 provides control information to the UEs through the MBMS Control Channel (MCCH). Id. i-f 19; see also id. Fig. 3. An MCCH Indication Message indicates when the UEs should switch channels to receive a service's control information. See id. i-fi-1 22-23. MBMS data is transmitted only while a session is ongoing. Id. i-f 15. Lee's MEMS-related control information includes a session start and stop. Id. i-f 19. The session start and stop indicates service's start and end. Id. Lee expressly states that the UEs receive "one or more MBMS services." Id. i-f 22. Although Lee mentions multiple services in paragraph 19 and the control information in paragraph 22, we find insufficient evidence that these are separate embodiments, as suggested by Appellants' arguments. See Br. 7. Rather, Lee's paragraph 22 continues the discussion of the "related art" in Section 2 of the Background of the Invention. See Lee i-fi-1 5-26. That 2 UTRAN stands for "UMTS terrestrial radio access network." Lee i-f 6. UMTS stands for "universal mobile telecommunications system." Id. i-f 5. 5 Appeal2015-001238 Application 12/811,893 is, Lee's UTRAN 6 sends the session start to the UEs for multiple MBMS services. See Lee i-fi-f 19-22; accord Ans. 3. Because the order of multiple MBMS services can be derived from Lee's session start session data, we agree that Lee's start session data for multiple services collectively represents the recited order. See Ans. 3. Each service is transmitted after the session start. See Lee i1 23 (describing receiving the control data on the MCCH then switching to MTCH to receive the service's data). So the transmission order, as recited in claim 1, can be determined by comparing each service's session start. Accord Ans. 3. That is, if each service has corresponding session start data indicating when the service starts (Lee i-fi-f 19, 22, cited in Ans. 3), this session-start data, taken as a whole, reflects when each service starts relative to other sessions. Accordingly, the Examiner's interpretation that Lee's session start data corresponds to the recited "transmission order information representing the order in which" multimedia services are to be transmitted (Ans. 3) is reasonable. To the extent that Appellants argue that Lee does not send the session start for multiple services together (see Br. 7), we note that claim 1 broadly recites "representing." But the claim does not specify a particular manner of representation. For example, the claim does not require an ordered list of services. See Spec. 7. Furthermore, Appellants' argument that Lee's indication message lacks order information (Br. 7) does not squarely address the Examiner's findings regarding the session start information (Ans. 3). In particular, the MCCH Indication Message is separate from Lee's session start information. See Lee i123. As discussed above, the MCCH Indication Message tells the 6 Appeal2015-001238 Application 12/811,893 UE to switch channels to receive control information. Id. And Lee's MCCH Indication Message is not relied upon by the Examiner. See Ans. 3. Accordingly, Appellants' arguments in this regard (Br. 7) do not squarely address, let alone persuasively rebut, the Examiner's position. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1, and claims 2---6, 8, 9, 11-15, 20, and 21, not argued separately with particularity. See Br. 8. DECISION The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1---6, 8, 9, 11-15, 20, and 21 is affirmed. 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 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation