Ex Parte Chong

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 25, 2018

14145701 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 25, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/145,701 12/31/2013
74365 7590 04/27/2018
Slater Matsil, LLP/HW/FW/HWC
17950 Preston Road, Suite 1000
Dallas, TX 75252
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Euhan Chong
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.
HW 81091848US01 8611
EXAMINER
CHENG, DIANA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2842
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/27/2018 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):
uspatent@huawei.com
docketing@slatermatsil.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte EUHAN CHONG
Appeal2017-008219
Application 14/145,701
Technology Center 2800
Before CATHERINE Q. TIMM, A VEL YN M. ROSS, and
SHELDON M. McGEE, Administrative Patent Judges.
McGEE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134, Appellant1 seeks our review of the
Examiner's rejection of claims 1-20. Br. 7.
We have jurisdiction. 35 U.S.C. § 6.
We affirm.
SUBJECT MATTER
The subject matter on appeal concerns an injection-locked oscillator
apparatus capable of phase rotation and interpolation. Spec. , 1.
1 Appellant is the Applicant, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. Futurewei
Technologies, Inc. is identified as the real party in interest. Br. 2.
Appeal2017-008219
Application 14/145,701
Independent claim 1 is illustrative:
1. An apparatus [200] comprising:
a ring oscillator [ 102] comprising a plurality of delay stages
[202, 204, 206, 208] connected in cascade; and
an injection apparatus [104] comprising a plurality of
injection devices [221, 231, 241, 251 ], wherein:
Br. 15.
the injection devices receive a reference clock [ clkp,
clkm] from their inputs; and
outputs of the injection devices are coupled to
respective outputs of the delay stages, and wherein each
injection device comprises:
a polarity selection stage [222] having inputs
coupled to the reference clock; and
an adjustable gain stage [224] having inputs
coupled to outputs of the polarity selection stage and
outputs coupled to outputs of a corresponding delay stage.
Figure 2B is likewise illustrative, and appears below:
200 ,·
210 102
FIG. 2B
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Appeal2017-008219
Application 14/145,701
Figure 2B depicts a schematic diagram of one embodiment of the
claimed apparatus. Spec. ,r 33.
Independent claims 1, 8, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a)
as unpatentable over the combined disclosures of O 'Mahony2 and
Takahashi. 3 The dependent claims are likewise rejected, with additional
prior art (not at issue in this appeal) applied only to dependent claims 5, 7,
and 20. Because Appellant presents no substantive argument for any claim
other than claim 1, we select claim 1 as representative, and decide the
propriety of this appeal on claim 1 alone.
OPINION
We have considered Appellant's arguments (Br. 7-13) and are
unpersuaded that Appellant has identified any reversible error in the
Examiner's rejections. In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1365---66 (Fed. Cir. 2011).
Therefore, we sustain the obviousness rejections based on the findings of
fact, conclusions of law, and rebuttals to arguments expressed by the
Examiner in the Final Action, Advisory Action, 4 and in the Answer. We add
the following.
The Examiner finds, and Appellant does not dispute, that O 'Mahony
and Takahashi disclose the recited elements of the claimed apparatus. Final
Act. 3--4; see generally Br. Appellant's arguments are primarily directed to
whether the skilled artisan would have combined the device of O'Mahony
2 Frank O'Mahony et al., A Programmable Phase Rotator based on Time-
Modulated Injection-Locking, 2010 Symposium on VLSI Circuits, Technical
Digest of Technical Papers 45--46.
3 Takahashi et al., US 6,442,111 Bl, issued August 27, 2002.
4 Advisory Action dated December 23, 2015 ("Adv. Act.").
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Appeal2017-008219
Application 14/145,701
with that of Takahashi. Br. 7-12. Specifically, Appellant contends that the
O'Mahony's digital signal would not be capable of being processed by
Takahashi's analog circuitry as alleged by the Examiner, and that the
Examiner's reliance on Takahashi's digital-to-analog converter (i.e., "DAC,"
Adv. Act. 2) is improper. Br. 10-12. This argument is unpersuasive of
reversible error as it is essentially an argument against the bodily
incorporation of Takahashi's structure into that of O'Mahony. As correctly
noted by the Examiner (Ans. 5), it is well-settled that such bodily
incorporation arguments are of little relevance to the obviousness inquiry.
See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413,425 (CCPA 1981). Moreover, Appellant's
bare assertion regarding the inoperability of incorporating Takahashi's DAC
into O'Mahony's phase rotator is likewise unpersuasive. Br. 11. Such
skeletal arguments fail to convincingly explain why using a DAC to convert
the signal from digital to analog would have changed the operation
principles of O'Mahony's device so as to render it inoperable.
The obviousness rejection of claim 1 is therefore sustained. Claims
2-20 fall with claim 1.
DECISION
The Examiner's final decision to reject claims 1-20 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal maybe extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l).
AFFIRMED
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