Ex Parte Jaakkola

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 30, 2013

11133657 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 30, 2013)

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.
11/133,657 05/16/2005 Mikko Jaakkola 944-004.057 8825
10945 7590 08/30/2013
NOKIA CORPORATION
c/o Ware, Fressola, Maguire & Barber LLP
Building Five, Bradford Green
755 Main Street, PO Box 224
Monroe, CT 06468
EXAMINER
GELIN, JEAN ALLAND
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2643
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/30/2013 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 MIKKO JAAKKOLA
____________________

Appeal 2011-004217
Application 11/133,657
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before THU A. DANG, JAMES R. HUGHES, and
JEFFERY S. SMITH, Administrative Patent Judges.

DANG, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 82-106. Claims 1-81 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

A. INVENTION
Appellant’s invention is related to “adapting a transmission rate for
providing data in a downlink direction from an access point (AP) in a
wireless network to a terminal” (Spec. 1, ll. 5-8).

B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
Claim 82 is exemplary:
82. A method comprising:

adapting a wireless communication link for providing
data in a downlink direction from an apparatus to a user
equipment; and

receiving, by the apparatus, a message from the user
equipment containing information about an interference source
to assist the apparatus in adapting the wireless communication
link, wherein the information about the interference source
comprises the position of the interference in time.

C. REJECTION
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Sherlock US 2003/0123420 A1 July 3, 2003
Karger US 2003/0134639 A1 July 17, 2003

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Claims 82-106 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Karger and Sherlock.

II. ISSUE
The main issue before us is whether the Examiner has erred in
determining that the combination of Karger and Sherlock teaches or would
have suggested receiving “a message . . . containing information about an
interference source” wherein “the information . . . comprises the position of
the interference in time” (claim 82, emphasis added).

III. FINDINGS OF FACT
The following Findings of Fact (FF) are shown by a preponderance of
the evidence.
Karger
1. Karger discloses administering radio resources in a mobile
radio cell, wherein a mobile terminal is requested by the base station to send
out a signal which is representative of an interference situation at the
location of the mobile terminal, the signal received from the mobile terminal
is evaluated for determining the radio sources forming the basis of the signal
and the intensities of the radio sources, and the base station adapts the
distribution of the radio resources for improving the interference situation at
the location of the mobile terminal (p. 1, ¶ [0006]).
2. The evaluation of the interference situation leads a further
mobile station being identified as the main interference source for the mobile
terminal (p. 1, ¶ [0007]).

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Sherlock
3. Sherlock discloses an interference monitor that receives
samples from access points and processes the data to characterize the data,
wherein the processing involves comparing the frequency and time domain
data to known interference templates to identify the nature (e.g., type,
location) of the interference, and if the interference can be detected by more
than one access point, then the interference monitor can provide an
improved estimate of the location of the source of the interference (p. 3,
¶ [0029]).

IV. ANALYSIS
35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
As to representative claim 82, although Appellant concedes that
Karger discloses a base station that “receives from a mobile terminal a signal
having raw data representative of the interference situation” (App. Br. 10),
Appellant argues that “this received information is not about the source of
the interference causing the interference situation” but instead, is used by the
base station to determine the source of the interference (id.). Similarly,
although Appellant concedes that Sherlock discloses “detecting and locating
interferers” (App. Br. 13), Appellant contends that “the interference monitor
54 must monitor the interference on its own based on the error statistic data
received from one or more access points, and must try to determine the
source of the interference, including [‘]the position of the interference in
time,’ on its own” (id.).
The Examiner finds that Karger discloses sending a signal that
“includes raw data representative of the interference situation,” and points
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out that “[t]his information . . . is used to inform the base station about the
interference source” since “[t]he base station would not be able to know the
source of the interference if the mobile terminal did not send [the data]”
(Ans. 11). The Examiner also finds that Sherlock discloses that “[e]rror
static data or raw baseband data (i.e., interpreted as message) stored at the
mobile station is received by the interference monitor (corresponding to the
apparatus receives message from the user equipment” wherein “[i]f the
interference monitor determines that an interferer may be present it makes an
estimation of the region impacted by the interferer based on the station that
reports elevated error statistic and adapting the network accordingly []” (id.).
Thus, the Examiner finds that Sherlock’s control system “can request
additional capture data over different time period,” and “the interference
data (Error static data or raw baseband data) contains time domain data
corresponding to a specific interferer (source of the interference or
microwave oven)” (Ans. 12, citations and emphasis omitted).
We find no error with the Examiner’s conclusion that claim 82 would
have been obvious over Karger in view of Sherlock (Ans. 4).
Although Appellant argues that Karger does not disclose information
“about the source of the interference causing the interference situation”
(App. Br. 10), and that Sherlock does not disclose information “including
the position of the interference in time” (App. Br. 13, emphasis omitted),
Appellant appears to argue that neither Karger nor Sherlock individually
anticipates claim 82. However, the test for obviousness is not what the
references show individually but what the combined teachings would have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Merck & Co., 800
F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
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We give the claim its broadest reasonable interpretation consistent
with the Specification. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir.
1997). We note that, by contending that Karger’s information differs from
Appellant’s information “about an interference source” (App. Br. 10) and
Sherlock’s information differs from Appellant’s information comprising “the
position of the interference in time” (App. Br. 13), we find Appellant’s
principal argument urging patentability is predicated on non-functional
descriptive material (i.e., the type or content of the data that is being
received). That is, the “messsage” is the type/content of the data being
received by the apparatus, and the “information about the interference
source” is the type/content of the data contained in the message, and “the
position of the interference in time” is the type/content of the data comprised
in the information, but the type of data being received and the type of data
contained and comprised therein do not change the functionality of or
provide an additional function to the “receiving” step.
The informational content of non-functional descriptive material is not
entitled to weight in the patentability analysis. See In re Lowry, 32 F.3d
1579, 1583 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (“Lowry does not claim merely the information
content of a memory . . . . Nor does he seek to patent the content of
information resident in a database.”). See also Ex parte Nehls, 88 USPQ2d
1883, 1887-90 (BPAI 2008) (precedential); Ex parte Curry, 84 USPQ2d
1272 (BPAI 2005) (informative) (Federal Circuit Appeal No. 2006-1003),
aff’d, Rule 36 (June 12, 2006)); Ex parte Mathias, 84 USPQ2d 1276 (BPAI
2005) (informative), aff’d, 191 Fed. Appx. 959 (Fed. Cir. 2006).
Here, the informational content of the data that is being received is
entitled to no weight in the patentability analysis. Accordingly, we conclude
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that claim 82 merely requires receiving, by the apparatus, data from the user
equipment.
Karger discloses a mobile terminal is requested that sends out a signal
representative of an interference situation (FF 1). Thus, Karger discloses
receiving, by an apparatus, data from a user equipment, as required by claim
82.
Furthermore, Karger discloses that the evaluation of the interference
situation leads a further mobile station being identified as the main
interference source for the mobile terminal (FF 2). We find no error with the
Examiner’s finding that the received information “is used to inform the base
station about the interference source” since “[t]he base station would not be
able to know the source of the interference if the mobile terminal did not
send [the data]” (Ans. 11).
Additionally, Sherlock discloses receiving samples from access points
and processes the data to characterize the data, wherein the processing
involves comparing the frequency and time domain data to known
interference templates to identify the nature (e.g., type, location) of the
interference (FF 3). Thus, Sherlock also discloses receiving, by an
apparatus, data from a user equipment, as required by claim 82.
Since Sherlock’s received data includes frequency and time domain
data to identify the location of the interference (FF 1), we also find no error
with the Examiner’s finding that Sherlock’s information “contains time
domain data corresponding to a specific interferer” (Ans. 12).
Accordingly, we find no error in the Examiner’s conclusion that the
combination of Karger and Sherlock would at least have suggested the
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features of claim 82. Thus, we find that Appellant has not shown that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 82 over Karger and Sherlock.
Appellant provides similar arguments for independent claims 88, 94,
100, and 106 which Appellant asserts “contain similar limitations” (App. Br.
15), and merely repeats the recited language of dependent claims 83-87
while asserting that Sherlock “does not disclose, teach or suggest the
limitations recited in these dependent claims” (App. Br. 15-16).
Accordingly, for at least the reasons discussed above, independent claims
88, 94, 100, and 106 and claims 83-87, 89-93, 95-99, and 101-105
depending respectively from claims 82, 88, 94, and 100 fall with claim 82
over Karger and Sherlock.

V. CONCLUSION AND DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 82-106 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
are 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)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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