13613112 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 23, 2016)

Ex Parte Huang et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 23, 2016

13613112 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 23, 2016)

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. 13/613,112 09/13/2012 Chunxing Huang HUAW02-83819 9283 90073 7590 Docket Clerk/HTCL P.O. Drawer 800889 Dallas, TX 75380 12/28/2016 EXAMINER TIMORY, KABIR A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2631 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/28/2016 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): patents @ munckwilson. com munckwilson @ gmail. com uspatent@huawei.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHUNXING HUANG, WAN LAM, PONGBO GUO, and ZHENGRONG LIU Appeal 2015-006613 Application 13/613,112 Technology Center 2600 Before JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, AMBER L. HAGY, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1—3, 5—8, 10-13, 15—18, and 20. Claims 4, 9, 14, and 19 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. Final Act. 7. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. App. Br. 4. Appeal 2015-006613 Application 13/613,112 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants ’ Invention Appellants’ invention generally relates to “a data transmission method and device” (Spec. 12) for “achieving] balance between transmission efficiency and an error correction capability” (Spec. 1 5). Claim 1, which is illustrative, reads as follows: 1. A data transmission method, comprising: performing, by the transmitter, error detection coding and error report coding of a data frame to form a source data frame with error detection codes and error report codes; sending, by a transmitter, the source data frame to a receiver, and saving the source data frame; sending, by the transmitter, other data frames to the receiver, and saving the other data frames; receiving, by the transmitter, a data retransmission notification which is related to the source data frame and sent by the receiver; retrieving, by the transmitter, the source data frame and other data frames from a storage space, wherein the other data frames are sent by the transmitter to the receiver in a time period from sending the source data frame by the transmitter to receiving the data retransmission notification by the transmitter, and retransmitting the source data frame and the other data frames to the receiver. Rejections Claims 1, 2, 5—7, 10-12, 15—17, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujimoto et al. (US 2008/0176591 Al; published July 24, 2008) (“Fujimoto”) and Janecek 2 Appeal 2015-006613 Application 13/613,112 et al. (US 2011/0286340 Al; published Nov. 24, 2011) (“Janecek”). Final Act. 4—6. Claims 3, 8, 13, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujimoto, Janecek, and Arora et al. (US 2007/0075735 Al; published Apr. 5, 2007) (“Arora”). Final Act. 7. Issue Did the Examiner err by finding the combination of Fujimoto and Janecek teaches or suggests “performing, by the transmitter, error detection coding and error report coding of a data frame to form a source data frame with error detection codes and error report codes,” as recited in claim 1 ? ANALYSIS Regarding claim 1, the Examiner finds Fujimoto teaches or suggests all of the limitations except “for specifically teaching error report coding of a data [frame] to form a source data [frame] with error detection codes and error report codes.” Final Act. 5. The Examiner relies on Janecek for teaching the missing limitation. Id. (citing Janecek Fig. 4; || 112, 126). Appellants contend the combination of Fujimoto and Janecek does not teach or suggest “performing, by the transmitter, error detection coding and error report coding of a data frame to form a source data frame with error detection codes and error report codes,” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 14- lb; Reply Br. 2-4. In particular, Appellants contend Janecek does not teach or suggest performing error report coding but, instead, only teaches performing error detection coding, as separately required by claim 1. App. Br. 14. 3 Appeal 2015-006613 Application 13/613,112 Appellants’ Specification defines “error report coding” as “high-speed link coding capable of transferring information” such as, for example, x- bit/y-bit (XB/YB) coding. Spec. 122. We find this definition is broad enough to include error detection coding. However, construing “error report coding” as “error detection coding” would render the claim term “error detection coding” superfluous, which is disfavored. Power Mosfet Techs., L.L.C. v. Siemens AG, 378 F.3d 1396, 1410 (Fed. Cir. 2004); see also Merck & Co., Inc. v. Teva Pharm. USA, Inc., 395 F.3d 1364, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“A claim construction that gives meaning to all the terms of the claim is preferred over one that does not do so” (internal citations omitted)). Further, the Specification consistently uses “error report coding” to refer to an encoding process that is different from error detection coding. See Spec. 1128—31. As such, we find “error report coding” refers to high-speed link coding capable of transmitting information that is different from error detection coding. Janecek teaches that “[transmission sequence manager 68 may receive the data unit or data frame from the host and direct frame generator 62 to append one or more parity bits to the frame to generate a MAC layer data frame,” which is subsequently transmitted to a receiving device. Janecek H 108-09. Janecek further teaches that “[i]n some examples, the MAC layer data frame may be an MPDU, which includes a Frame Check Sequence (FCS).” Janecek 1108. Janecek teaches that an error detection module detects whether a received data frame is corrupted and that “[i]n one example, error detection module 70 may use frame check sequence (FCS) bits that are appended to the frame to perform error detection.” Janecek 1126. Janecek, therefore, teaches performing error detection coding and not 4 Appeal 2015-006613 Application 13/613,112 error report coding, as required by claim 1. Further, the Examiner’s findings (Ans. 4) fail to explain how Janecek’s teaching that the results of performing error detection include an indicator that indicates whether a given frame passed or failed the error detection test teaches or suggests that the source data frame includes “error report codes,” as also required by claim 1. As such, we are persuaded that the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of Fujimoto and Janecek teaches or suggests “performing, by the transmitter, error detection coding and error report coding of a data frame to form a source data frame with error detection codes and error report codes,” as recited in claim 1. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claim 1 and claims 2, 3, 5—8, 10—13, 15—18, and 20, which recite commensurate limitations. DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—3, 5—8, 10-13, 15— 18, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). REVERSED 5