Ex Parte Lakkis et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 23, 2017

12483987 (P.T.A.B. May. 23, 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.
12/483,987 06/12/2009 Ismail Lakkis 090424U2 1385
23696 7590 05/25/2017
OTTAT mMM TNmRPORATFD
EXAMINER
5775 MOREHOUSE DR.
SAN DIEGO, CA 92121
CEHIC, KENAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2479
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/25/2017 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):
us-docketing@qualcomm.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ISMAIL LAKKIS and VERED BAR BRACHA
Appeal 2017-002905
Application 12/483,9871
Technology Center 2400
Before JASON V. MORGAN, JON M. JURGOVAN, and
JOHN F. HORVATH, Administrative Patent Judges.
JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
1 Appellants identify QUALCOMM Incorporated as the real party in
interest. (App. Br. 4.)
Appeal 2017-002905
Application 12/483,987
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1—38. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We reverse.
CLAIMED INVENTION
The claims are directed to directional channel access in a wireless
communications system. (Spec. 13.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method for wireless communications comprising:
detecting at least a portion of a preamble of a packet
transmitted by a first device by sweeping over a plurality of
receive directions;
receiving and decoding a header of the packet based on a
first receive direction to identify that the first device transmitted
the packet, wherein a second receive direction is incorporated in
the header; and
completing reception of the packet based on the second
receive direction.2
REJECTIONS
Claims 1—7, 9, 12—18, 20, 23—30, 32, and 35—38 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Proctor (US 2004/0196822 Al, published
Oct. 7, 2004) and Park (US 2008/0153502 Al, published June 26, 2008).
(Final Act. 2—6.)
2 Appellants and the Examiner should examine the claims for compliance
with 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph. It is unclear what connection or
relationship, if any, the “detecting” limitation has to the remaining
“receiving” or “completing” limitations.
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Application 12/483,987
Claims 8, 19, and 31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on
Proctor, Park, and Nakabayashi (US 2003/0112810 Al, published June 19,
2003). (Final Act. 6-7.)
Claims 10, 21, and 33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based
on Proctor, Park, and Hoffmann (US 2005/0075142 Al, published April 7,
2005). (Final Act. 7-8.)
Claims 11, 22, and 34 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based
on Proctor, Park, and Wang (US 2008/0187067 Al, published August 7,
2008). (Final Act. 8-9.)
ANALYSIS
Appellants argue the cited combination of references, Proctor and
Park, fail to teach or suggest the claimed limitation of “receiving and
decoding a header of the packet based on a first receive direction to identity
that the first device transmitted the packet, wherein a second receive
direction is incorporated in the header” and “completing reception of the
packet based on the second receive direction,” as recited in independent
claims 1, 12, 23, 24, and 35. (App. Br. 9-12.) In particular, Appellants
argue that Proctor, the reference relied upon by the Examiner to teach this
feature (Final Act. 2), is silent as to the contents of the header and thus
necessarily fails to disclose “a second receive direction is incorporated in the
header” of the packet as claimed. {Id. at 10-11 citing Proctor H 41—43.)
Proctor receives and examines the header of a signal to determine if
the node that sent the signal is identified therein. (141.) If the node is
identified, then Proctor’s access point uses the node identification (ID)3 to
3 The Final Office Action refers to a “packet ID” of which we find no
mention in Proctor. {See, e.g., Final Act. 2—3.) Appellants contend what is
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Application 12/483,987
look up the last known angle of that node from a table, and uses this angle to
steer the antenna array toward the last known position of the identified node.
(143.) Thus, Proctor indirectly identifies node angle by referencing a table
with the node ID from the header, whereas the claimed invention directly
identifies the “second receive direction” in its header.
The Examiner’s findings hinge upon the broadest reasonable
interpretation of “incorporate,” which the Examiner finds synonymous with
“embody.” (Final Act. 10 citing Dictionary.com Unabridged, Random
House, “incorporate” means “to embody”.) The Examiner finds that
“embody” means “to represent something in a clear and obvious way,” or
“to include something as part of a feature.” (Final Act. 10-11 citing
Merriam-Webster Dictionary “embody” http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/embody.) Applying these definitions to Proctor, the
Examiner states that the node ID is the representation of the known angle
saved in the table, and thus matches the argued claim language under
broadest reasonable interpretation. (Ans. 4.)
Appellants contend the Examiner’s definitions actually support their
argument because a node ID does not identify a receive direction in a clear
and obvious way or include a receive direction as part of a packet ID. (App.
Br. 11—12.) Appellants also contend that the word “incorporate” means “to
include (something) as part of something else.” (Reply Br. 3 citing
Merriam-Webster Dictionary “incorporate” http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/incorporate). Appellants assert that the plain
meaning of the claimed phrase “a second receive direction is incorporated in
contained in the header of a packet is more accurately a “node ID” and not a
“packet ID.” (App. Br. 11—12.) The Examiner appears to acquiesce in this
assertion. (Ans. 3—5.)
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Application 12/483,987
the header” should be construed as meaning the second receive direction is
included in the header of the received and decoded packet. (Id.)
Claims are interpreted according to their broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with the Specification. In re Am. Acad, of Sci.
Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2004). The words of the claim
must be given their plain meaning unless the plain meaning is inconsistent
with the specification. In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320,
1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (discussed below); Chef America, Inc. v. Lamb-
Weston, Inc., 358 F.3d 1371, 1372, 69 USPQ2d 1857 (Fed. Cir. 2004)
(Ordinary, simple English words whose meaning is clear and
unquestionable, absent any indication that their use in a particular context
changes their meaning, are construed to mean exactly what they say. Thus,
“heating the resulting batter-coated dough to a temperature in the range of
about 400°F to 850°F” required heating the dough, rather than the air inside
an oven, to the specified temperature.). See MPEP §2111.01.
The word “incorporate” is used relevantly only once in the
Specification as follows “In one aspect of the disclosure, the transmitting
DEV (e.g., DEV-1) can incorporate the best receive direction of DEV-2 in a
header 1240 of the packet 1200.” (Spec. 1118.) We find this usage of the
term in the Specification supports the definition urged by Appellants. In
addition, Appellants cite directly to the definition of “incorporate,” which is
more persuasive of the term’s plain and ordinary meaning as compared to
stringing together the definitions of “incorporate” and “embody,” as the
Examiner has done. Even if we adopted the Examiner’s proposed definition,
Appellants have presented plausible arguments that the Examiner’s
definition actually supports their argument that the claimed language
distinguishes over Proctor.
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Thus, having considered Appellants’ arguments and the Examiner’s
findings, we find that the broadest reasonable interpretation of “incorporate”
means that the “second receive direction” is included in the header of the
received and decoded packet, as Appellants propose. Accordingly, the
claimed invention distinguishes over the cited combination because
Proctor’s node ID is not itself a “second receive direction,” but instead
merely identifies a node (notwithstanding that Proctor uses the node ID as a
reference to look-up the corresponding node angle or second receive
direction from a table). The Examiner has not established that despite this
difference the claimed invention would have been obvious over the
combination of Proctor and Park. See Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S.
1, 17—18 (1966) (the obviousness determination requires ascertaining the
differences between the claimed invention and the prior art.) Accordingly,
on the record before us, we do not sustain the rejection of independent
claims 1, 12, 23, 24, and 35, or the remaining claims, which incorporate their
limitations by virtue of their dependency.
Our decision on this basis is fully dispositive of the issues in this case.
For the reasons of efficiency, expediency, and to conserve the Board’s
limited resources, we exercise our discretion and decline to address the
remaining arguments in this case.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—38 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
REVERSED
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