Ex Parte Chuah

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 30, 2009

09764510 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 30, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
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Ex parte MOOI CHOO CHUAH
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Appeal 2009-000156
Application 09/764,510
Technology Center 2400
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Decided: September 30, 2009
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Before KENNETH W. HAIRSTON, MAHSHID D. SAADAT
and ROBERT E. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judges.
HAIRSTON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. §§ 6(b) and 134 from the final
rejection of claims 1 to 3, 5 to 9 and 14 to 17. We will reverse.
The disclosed invention relates to the issuance of a request for
preferred ones of traffic classes (e.g., streaming and interactive) in a priority
order during negotiations for variable quality of service between a
Appeal 2009-000156
Application 09/764,510

2
transmitting station and a receiving station (Figs. 4, 5; Spec. 2, 5 to 7;
Abstract).
Claim 1 is representative of the claims on appeal, and it reads as
follows:
1. A method for use by a mobile station, the method comprising the
step of:
negotiating a variable quality of service between a mobile station and
a wireless data network, when said mobile station is connected to said
wireless data network; and
wherein during said negotiation said mobile station issues a request
for preferred ones of traffic classes in a priority order, wherein the request
includes a quality of service information element having at least one traffic
class field for conveying the request for preferred ones of traffic classes in
said priority order;
wherein, when resources are unavailable for granting a first traffic
class preference, said network successively checks, according to said priority
order, if enough resources are available for at least one other traffic class
preference without requiring additional mobile station transmissions.
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Kannas US 6,683,853 B1 Jan. 27, 2004
(filed Dec. 1, 1999)
Rinne US 6,845,100 B1 Jan. 18, 2005
(filed Aug. 28, 2000)
The Examiner rejected claims 1 to 3, 5 to 9, and 14 to 17 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Kannas and Rinne.
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Application 09/764,510

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Kannas describes a system that dynamically changes a requested
quality of service (QoS) if the requested quality of service is not available
(Figs. 1, 2; Abstract; col. 2, ll. 8 to 42; col. 5, ll. 6 to 63).
The Examiner acknowledges (Final Rej. 3) that “Kannas et al. does
not disclose the request includes a QOS information element having at least
one traffic class field for conveying the request for preferred ones of traffic
classes in priority order.” According to the Examiner (Final Rej. 3), Rinne
describes “a priority table comprising traffic class fields corresponding with
different class of services.” The Examiner contends (Final Rej. 3) that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the
teachings of Rinne into the teachings of Kannas to “help network controller
to dynamically allocate different traffic classes without requiring a mobile to
retransmit a request when the network bandwidth is not available.”
Appellant argues inter alia (App. Br. 15) that “[a] traffic class-
protocol field value included within a received packet and used by a QoS
classifier for classifying the received packet into a QoS class and QoS sub-
class for QoS-based transmission over a radio network, as taught in Rinne, is
not a traffic class field for conveying a request . . . for preferred ones of
traffic classes in a priority order” as set forth in the claims on appeal.
Although Rinne describes a QoS scheduler that comprises means for
determining from a priority table priorities of packets stored according to
differing classes, and means for allocating the capacity of transmission lines
based on the priorities (col. 3, ll. 54 to 60), Rinne is silent as to a request
being made for preferred ones of traffic classes in a priority order as required
by all of the claims on appeal. In summary, the request for a quality of
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service (QoS) in Rinne (col. 3, l. 61 to col. 4, l. 13) is not a request for
preferred ones of traffic classes in a priority order.
Thus, we agree with the Appellant’s argument that the skilled artisan
would not have combined the teachings of the applied references to arrive at
the claimed invention. It follows that the obviousness rejection of claims 1
to 3, 5 to 9, and 14 to 17 is reversed because the Examiner’s articulated
reasons for combining the teachings of the references to Kannas and Rinne
do not support a legal conclusion of obviousness. KSR Int’l v. Teleflex, Inc.,
550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007).
The decision of the Examiner is reversed.

REVERSED

KIS

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