Ex Parte Farmanbar et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 9, 2017

13558713 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 9, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
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
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/558,713 07/26/2012 Hamidreza Farmanbar HUAW07-45659 3552
74365 7590
Slater Matsil, LLP
17950 Preston Road, Suite 1000
Dallas, TX 75252
EXAMINER
LUO, ANTHONY L
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2465
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/13/2017 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 HAMIDREZA FARMANBAR, MOHAMMADHADI BALIGH,
and KEYVAN ZARIFI
Appeal 2016-0016791
Application 13/558,713
Technology Center 2400
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, JOHN P. PINKERTON,
and NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1—32. We have jurisdiction over the pending
rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellants identify Futurewei Technologies, Inc. as the real party in
interest. (App. Br. 4.)
Appeal 2016-001679
Application 13/558,713
THE INVENTION
Appellants’ disclosed and claimed invention is directed to allocating
downlink transmit power in a wireless multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO) system. (Abstract.)
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A method, comprising:
identifying, by a base station, a set of receivers in a
wireless multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system for
receiving signals from one or more transmitters on a same time-
frequency slot;
receiving, by the base station, channel state information
(CSI) for communication channels between the identified
receivers and the transmitters;
constructing a precoder based on the CSI; and
deriving a set of power-scale factors for the precoder
based on a utility function associated with the identified
receivers such that the power-scale factors optimize the utility
function, wherein a respective power-scale factor scales power
transmitted to a corresponding receiver.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1,3,9, 11, 17, 19, 25, and 27 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Papadopoulos et al. (US
8,787,249 B2, issued July 22, 2014 ) and Khojastepour et al. (US 8,625,695
B2, issued Jan. 7, 2014). (Final Act. 4—7.)
The Examiner rejected claims 2, 10, 18, and 26 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Papadopoulos, Khojastepour, and Ko et
al. (US 8,792,373 B2, issued July 29, 2014). (Final Act. 7-8.)
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Application 13/558,713
The Examiner rejected claims 4, 5, 12, 13, 20, 21, 28, and 29 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Papadopoulos, Khojastepour,
and Vaidyanathan (US 7,308,287 B2, issued Dec. 11, 2007). (Final Act.
8-10.)
The Examiner rejected claims 6, 14, 22, and 30 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Papadopoulos, Khojastepour,
Vaidyanathan, and Pelletier et al. (US 2011/0105174 Al, pub. May 5, 2011).
(Final Act. 10—12.)
The Examiner rejected claims 7, 15, 23, and 31 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Papadopoulos, Khojastepour, and
Dortschy et al. (US 8,238,545 B2, issued Aug. 7, 2012). (Final Act. 12—14.)
The Examiner rejected claims 8, 16, 24 and 32 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Papadopoulos, Khojastepour, and Miao
etal. (US 2011/0150114 Al, pub. June 23, 2011). (Final Act. 1^U15.)2
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
dispositive issue:3
Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
Papadopoulos and Khojastepour teaches or suggests the independent claim 1
2 Although the Examiner refers to claim 31 in this rejection, the substance of
the rejection clarifies that claim 32 is the object of the rejection.
3 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the findings of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed June 29, 2015); the Reply
Brief (filed Nov. 2, 2015); the Final Office Action (mailed Dec. 1, 2014);
and the Examiner’s Answer (mailed Sept. 22, 2015) for the respective
details.
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Appeal 2016-001679
Application 13/558,713
limitation, “constructing a precoder based on the CSI,” and the similar
limitations recited in independent claims 9, 17, and 25. (App. Br. 13—16.)
ANALYSIS
For the limitation at issue, the Examiner relies on the disclosure in
Papadopoulos of a multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO)-based wireless
communication system in which Channel State Information (CSI) is defined
by complex scalar values, which scale in proportion to the number of users
and the number of receiver and transmitter antennae. (Final Act. 4—5;
Papadopoulos Abstract, col. 2,11. 27—38.) The Examiner finds the CSI
scalar of Papadopoulos “acts as same as the CSI precoder with respect to the
transmitting power,” and concludes “this scalar is interpreted as a precoder
based on the CSI in a broadest reasonable interpretation.” (Ans. 14—15.)
Appellants argue Papadopoulos “says nothing about constructing a
precoder, or constructing a precoder based on CSI,” and the Examiner’s
interpretation of “precoder” to encompass the CSI scalar is “unreasonably
broad, conclusory, and without support in any of the cited references.”
(App. Br. 14.)
We agree with Appellants. The Examiner does not explain how the
discussion in Papadopoulos of the effect of the number of users and
antennae on the amount of scalar CSI information bears any relationship to
the requirement in the claims of constructing a precoder. Appellants’
Specification provides examples of precoder in the form of detailed matrix
formulae (Spec. Tflf 29, 41), and states:
Note that the broadcasting nature of the downlink means that
signals intended for one UE may cause interference at the other
co-served UEs. To maximize the overall system throughput,
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Appeal 2016-001679
Application 13/558,713
various precoding techniques can be used, in which the same
signal is emitted from each of the transmit antennas with
independent and appropriate weighting. For example, zero-
forcing precoding allows the multiple-antenna transmitter to
nullity multi-user interference signals.
(Spec. 13.) Neither these disclosures nor anything that the Examiner has
referred to in the cited references, or otherwise provided, supports the claim
interpretation relied on by the Examiner.
Accordingly, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner does not
provide prima facie support for the rejections. “[T]he examiner bears the
initial burden, on review of the prior art or on any other ground, of
presenting a prima facie case of unpatentability.” In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d
1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992). Therefore, on the record before us, we are
constrained to find the Examiner errs in rejecting independent claims 1, 9,
17, and 25.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, we do not sustain the obviousness
rejection of independent claims 1,9, 17, and 25 over Papadopoulos and
Khojastepour.
We also do not sustain the obviousness rejection of claims 3, 11, 19,
and 27 over Papadopoulos and Khojastepour, of claims 2, 10, 18, and 26
over Papadopoulos, Khojastepour, and Ko, of claims 4, 5, 12, 13, 20, 21, 28,
and 29 over Papadopoulos, Khojastepour, and Vaidyanathan, of claims 6,
14, 22, and 30 over Papadopoulos, Khojastepour, Vaidyanathan, and
Pelletier, of claims 7, 15, 23, and 31 over Papadopoulos, Khojastepour, and
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Application 13/558,713
Dortschy, and of claims 8, 16, 24 and 32 over Papadopoulos, Khojastepour,
and Miao, which claims are dependent from claims 1,9, 17, or 25.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—32.
REVERSED
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