Ex Parte Jeong et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 21, 2017

10914451 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 21, 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.
10/914,451 08/09/2004 Kyeong-In Jeong 678-1642 5577
66547 7590 04/25/2017
THE FARRELL LAW FIRM, P.C.
290 Broadhollow Road
Suite 210E
Melville, NY 11747
EXAMINER
TRINH, TAN H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2648
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/25/2017 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):
pto @ farrelliplaw. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte KYEONG-IN JEONG and SOENG-HUN KIM
Appeal 2015-002870
Application 10/914,451
Technology Center 2600
Before ALLEN R MACDONALD, ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, and
KRISTEN L. DROESCH, Administrative Patent Judges.
MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2015-002870
Application 10/914,451
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims
10—21 and 24—29. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
The claimed invention is directed to cell reselection for reception of
packet data. See Spec. 12—13.
Claim 10, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
10. A method for receiving a Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast
Service (MBMS) by at least one user equipment joining the
MBMS in a mobile communication system, the method
comprising:
receiving information for MBMS frequency selection by the at
least one user equipment located in a cell of a frequency area that
does not support the MBMS, from a base station;
performing the MBMS frequency selection to a cell of a
frequency area supporting the MBMS using the received
information; and
receiving the MBMS through an assigned radio resource from
the base station, wherein the information includes frequency
information for the cell of the frequency area supporting the
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
THE INVENTION
matter:
MBMS.
REFERENCES
appeal is:
Kwak
Wang
US 2003/0088695 A1
US 6,728,203
May 8, 2003
Apr. 27, 2004
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Application 10/914,451
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 10-13, 15—21, 24, 25, and 27—29 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C § 102(e) as being anticipated by Kwak.
Claims 14 and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Kwak in view of Wang.
ISSUES
The pivotal issues are whether the Examiner erred in finding that
Kwak discloses the limitations of:
receiving information for MBMS frequency selection by the at
least one user equipment located in a cell of a frequency area that
does not support the MBMS, from a base station;
performing the MBMS frequency selection to a cell of a frequency
area supporting the MBMS using the received information
as recited in independent claim 10 and similarly recited in independent claim
16.
ANALYSIS
We adopt the Examiner’s findings in the Answer and Final Action and
we add the following primarily for emphasis. We note that if Appellants
failed to present arguments on a particular rejection, we will not unilaterally
review those uncontested aspects of the rejection. See Ex parte Frye, 94
USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential); Hyatt v. Dudas, 551 F.3d
1307, 1313—14 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (The Board may treat arguments Appellants
failed to make for a given ground of rejection as waived).
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Appeal 2015-002870
Application 10/914,451
Claims 10—13, 15—21, 24, 25, and 27—29 rejected
under 35 U.S.C§ 102(e)
Appellants argue that user equipment (UE) 105 in Figure 1 of Kwak
receives the MBMS through a secondary carrier £2 103, and thus the UE is
located in a cell of a frequency area that supports the MBMS, in direct
contrast with independent claims 10 and 16 directed to at least one user
equipment located in a cell of a frequency area that does not support the
MBMS (App. Br. 41).
We do not agree with Appellants’ argument. The Examiner finds, and
we agree, that the term “Frequency Area” as recited in claim 10 does not
preclude a specific frequency range being utilized by a transceiver system
within a communication spectrum (Ans. 2). The Examiner finds, and we
agree, that under the broadest reasonable interpretation, “Frequency Area” is
tantamount to a frequency channel (Ans. 2). This is consistent with
Appellants’ own Specification stating “[t]hat is, the area is a single area in
view of geographical concept, but the area includes four cells having
different frequencies in view of FA [(frequency area)] supporting the
MBMS data” (Spec. 7:27—29). Thus, under the broadest reasonable
interpretation, consistent with Appellants’ Specification, different Frequency
Areas correspond to different frequencies.
The Examiner finds that Kwak discloses (para. 31) “FIG. 1, a Node B
101 sends a conventional common channel and a dedicated channel in
combination through a primary carrier f.sub. 1, 102 and provides an
1 Appellants’ Appeal Brief pages are not numbered, but we refer to the page
the argument appears in as the corresponding page number.
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Appeal 2015-002870
Application 10/914,451
MBMS through a secondary carrier f.sub.2 103” (Ans. 3). The Examiner
finds, and we agree, that a first carrier frequency f.sub.l constitutes a
frequency area which does not support MBMS and the second carrier
frequency f.sub.2 constitutes a different frequency area that supports MBMS
communication from Node B to the UE (Ans. 3). Thus, the f.sub.l
frequency is the frequency that does not support MBMS communication
(Ans. 3). Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner that Kwak discloses the
limitation of “a frequency area that does not support the MBMS” as recited
in claim 10 and similarly recited in claim 16.
Appellants further argue Kwak discloses that Node B sends or
provides a “conventional common channel”, “dedicated channel” or
“MBMS”, and neither indicates “information for MBMS frequency
selection”, as recited in claims 10 and 16 (App. Br. 4). Appellants assert
that the “receiving information” recitation in claim 10 and the “providing
information” recitation in claim 16 are distinguishable over cited paragraph
31, as well as the entirety of Kwak (App. Br. 4).
We do not agree. We agree with the Examiner’s findings that Kwak
discloses receiving information for MBMS frequency selection by at least
one user equipment located in a frequency area that does not support the
MBMS (see Ans. 3—4). This is because Kwak discloses that when the UE is
in an existing service with f.sub.l (i.e., Frequencv Area that does not support
MBMS) and it receives a radio signal for a new voice call or new service
and associated switching information signals (i.e., receives information for
MBMS frequency selection/s witching), it switches to f.sub.2 (i.e., selects the
Frequency Area that supports MBMS) (see Ans. 3—5 and Kwak paras. 34,
79). Therefore, we agree with the Examiner that this switching to the
MBMS frequency constitutes selection of the MBMS frequency in response
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Application 10/914,451
to a new voice call or new service and associated switching information
signals.
Appellants further assert that Kwak discloses frequency switching,
which is well-known in the art but contends that this is distinct from
performing frequency selection, as claimed (App. Br. 5). We are not
persuaded by this assertion because Appellants do not provide any factual
evidence to support such an assertion. See In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465,
1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (attorney argument not the kind of factual evidence
required to rebut a prima facie case of obviousness) and In re Pearson, 494
F.2d 1399, 1405 (CCPA 1974) (“Attorney’s argument in a brief cannot take
the place of evidence”).
Appellants further argue that Kwak does not teach performing
frequency selection using the cell information or the PBMSCH control
information (App. Br. 5). We do not agree, Kwak (para. 79; Fig. 12)
discloses that Node B transmits the Physical Broadcast Multicast Shared
Channel (PBMSCH) control information signal 1055 and the paging
indicator (PI) information signal 1057 to the UE in order to perform the
switching (Ans. 5; in Fig. 12 see elements 1055 and 1057). Thus, we agree
with the Examiner that Kwak discloses an information signal transmitted to
the UE tantamount to Appellants’ “information signal” to perform the
selection/switching (see Ans. 5).
Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claims 10 and 16 and for the same reasons the rejections of claims 11—13,
15, 17—21, 24, 25, and 27—29 not argued separately.
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Appeal 2015-002870
Application 10/914,451
Claims 14 and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a)
We also affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 14 and 26 for the
same reasons as stated above because Appellants did not argue these claims
separately.
CONCLUSIONS
The Examiner did not err in finding that Kwak discloses the
limitations of:
receiving information for MBMS frequency selection by the at
least one user equipment located in a cell of a frequency area that
does not support the MBMS, from a base station;
performing the MBMS frequency selection to a cell of a frequency
area supporting the MBMS using the received information
as recited in claim 10 and similarly recited in claim 16.
DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 10—21 and
24—29 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) (2009).
AFFIRMED
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