Ex Parte Faniuolo et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 29, 201612811870 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 29, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/811,870 07/07/2010 48116 7590 02/29/2016 FAY SHARPE/LUCENT 1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor The Halle Building FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Antonella Faniuolo 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 201140US01 2432 EXAMINER WONG, TITUS Cleveland, OH 44115-1843 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2184 MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE 02/29/2016 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 ANTONELLA F ANIUOLO and TAO YANG Appeal2014-000793 Application 12/811,870 Technology Center 2100 Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, TERRENCE W. McMILLIN, and MELISSA A. RAAP ALA, Administrative Patent Judges. SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1-13, which are all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We affirm. 1 According to Appellants, the Real Party in Interest is Alcatel Lucent (App. Br. 1). Appeal2014-000793 Application 12/811,870 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants' invention relates to transmitting a message between user equipment and network equipment (Spec. 1 :5---6). Exemplary claims 1 and 3 under appeal read as follows: 1. A method of transmitting a message between user equipment and network equipment, the message comprising a message header and a message payload, the message header having a plurality of fields, the method comprising: setting an indicator field in the message header to indicate that a report providing scheduling information is included in the message payload; setting a secondary indicator field in the message header to indicate that, for at least some values of the secondary indicator field, an alternative report having alternative scheduling information is included in the message payload; and transmitting the message header and message payload. 3. The method of claim 1, wherein, for at least one value of the secondary indicator field, the alternative report comprises both the scheduling information and the alternative scheduling information. The Rejections The Examiner rejected claims 1-10 and 11-13 under 35 U.S.C. § 102( a) as being anticipated by Applicant's Admitted Prior Art ( AAP A, Fig. 1, Spec. page 1) (see Final Act. 2-7). The Examiner further rejected claim 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over AAPA and DiGirolamo et al. (US 2008/0095185 Al; Apr. 24, 2008) (see Final Act. 8). 2 Appeal2014-000793 Application 12/811,870 Claim 1 ANALYSIS With respect to independent claim 1, Appellants contend the relied-on portion of AAP A does not disclose "setting an indicator in the message header to indicate that a report providing scheduling information is included in the message payload and additionally setting a secondary indicator field in the header to indicate the presence of alternative scheduling information" (App. Br. 5). In particular, Appellants argue that the Long Buffer Status Report (LBSR), which the Examiner characterizes as the alternative report containing the alternative scheduling information, is not sent separate from the alternative scheduling information, as described in Appellants' disclosure (App. Br. 6 (citing Spec. 2:36-3:4)). In response, the Examiner relies on the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim term "alternative scheduling information" and finds LBSR is an alternative report because it includes the scheduling information (Ans. 11 ). The Examiner further explains the portion of the Specification cited by Appellants "does not clearly distinguish a buffer status report from an alternative report" (id.). We agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusion. As found by the Examiner (id.), the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim does not preclude the alternative scheduling information from being a part of the buffer status report. Additionally, contrary to Appellants' contention that a disclosed alternative embodiment suggests separating the alternative report and the buffer status report (App. Br. 6 (citing AAPA 2:36-3:4); Reply Br. 4), the Specification also discusses including the alternative report and the buffer status report in a single message (see Ans. 11 (citing Spec. 1:34:38)). 3 Appeal2014-000793 Application 12/811,870 For the above-stated reasons, we are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments that the Examiner erred in finding AAP A teaches the disputed features of claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) rejection of claim 1. Claim 3 Regarding claim 3, Appellants contend the Examiner erred in finding LBSR is inclusive of the Short Buffer Status Report (SBSR) because the relied-on portion of AAP A discloses SBSR includes information on the size of a buffer group while the LBSR provides information on the size of every buffer group (App. Br. 5). The Examiner responds by explaining: The SBSR is interpreted as the report which contains information such as the size of a buffer group (page 1, lines 3 8 and 39 and Fig. 1 ). And since LBSR is interpreted as the alternative report, as mentioned in the above argument, which includes information on the size of every buffer group (page 2, lines 2-4 and Fig. 1 ), the information in the LBSR is inclusive of the information in the SBSR. Therefore, LBSR comprises both of the claimed information. (Ans. 11-12). We agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusion and adopt them as our own. As such, we are not persuaded by Appellants' contention that the broadest reasonable interpretation of claim 3 is not anticipated by AAPA. Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) rejection of claim 3. Claims 6, 9, and 10 Appellants argue the patentability of these claims based on reasons similar to those presented for claims 1 and 3. For the reasons discussed above, we are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments that the Examiner erred in finding AAPA teaches the limitations of claims 6, 9, and 10. 4 Appeal2014-000793 Application 12/811,870 Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) rejection of claims 6, 9, and 10. Remaining Claims Appellants do not argue the patentability of the remaining claims separately and allow them to fall with their base claims. Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) rejection of claims 2, 4, 5, 8, and 11-13 and the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claim 7. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-13 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 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation