Ex Parte Lohtaja et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 30, 2011

10168051 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 30, 2011)

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.
10/168,051 06/03/2003 Jarkko Lohtaja 800.0328.U1 (US) 2566
10948 7590 03/31/2011
Harrington & SMith , Attorneys At Law, LLC
4 Research Drive, Suite 202
Shelton, CT 06484
EXAMINER
KIM, WESLEY LEO
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2617
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/31/2011 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 BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte JARKKO LOHTAJA and ESKO PALDAN
____________________

Appeal 2009-013416
Application 10/168,051
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, ROBERT E. NAPPI, and
CARL W. WHITEHEAD, JR., Administrative Patent Judges.

MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2009-013416
Application 10/168,051

2
STATEMENT OF CASE
Introduction
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a non-final rejection of
claims 1, 4, 5, 9-11, and 14. Claims 2, 3, 6-8, 12, and 13 have been
canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Exemplary Claim
Exemplary independent claim 1 under appeal reads as follows:

1. A method of detecting a fraudulent mobile station in a mobile
communication system comprising a mobile switching center and a visitor
location register containing data about mobile stations currently located
within the coverage area of said mobile switching center and including
location area codes indicating the location of mobile stations, wherein said
method comprises:

monitoring with said visitor location register location area codes
stored in said visitor location register,

analyzing a reason for a change in said location area codes stored in
said visitor location register upon detection of a change in said location area
codes stored in said visitor location register in order to identify a process
which has triggered a change in said location area codes stored in said visitor
location register, and

indicating the presence of a fraudulent mobile station if said analyzing
indicates that a change in said location area codes stored in said visitor
location register has been triggered by a mobile originated call, a mobile
originated short message, mobile originated unstructured supplementary
service data, a mobile originated supplementary service, or a periodic
location update.

Appeal 2009-013416
Application 10/168,051

3
Rejections1
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1, 4, 5, 9, 11, and 14 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Emery (US 5,727,057).
2. The Examiner rejected claim 10 as being unpatentable under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the combination of Emery and Kozik (US
5,309,501).
Appellants’ Contentions
Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 4, 5,
9-11, and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for numerous reasons including: (1)
Emery fails to disclose or suggest the triggering criterion as recited by
Appellants, (2) Emery’s fraud indication is made without regard to the type
of process that triggers the change in location codes, (3) Appellants’
invention only identifies a process that triggers change to determine if a
mobile station is fraudulent, and does not compute time or distance as done
in Emery, and (4) Appellants’ claimed invention indicates fraudulent cell
phones exist when changes in codes are detected, not based on computations
as in Emery (App. Br. 8-12; Reply Br. 2-5).
Issue on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1, 4, 5, 9-11, and 14 as being
obvious because Emery fails to teach or suggest the limitations at issue?

1 Appellants have presented no substantive arguments in the Appeal Brief as
to the rejection of claim 10, and requests reversal of the rejection of claim 10
for the same reasons as claim 5 (from which claim 10 depends) rejected
under 103(a) (see Br. 12). In view of the foregoing, our discussion is limited
to Appellants’ arguments as to the rejection of claims 1, 4, 5, 9, 11, and 14
13 under 103(a).

Appeal 2009-013416
Application 10/168,051

4
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
contentions in the Appeal Brief and Reply Brief that the Examiner has erred.
We disagree with Appellants’ conclusions. We adopt as our own
(1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from
which this appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in
the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief. We concur
with the conclusions reached by the Examiner.
Claims 1, 4, 5, 9, 11, and 14 do not preclude the use of computations
as disclosed in Emery. We agree with the Examiner that claims 1, 5, 11, and
14 recite “triggering,” but do not recite “‘a location information change has
been triggered by a process which otherwise should not trigger a change of
location information in the subscriber register” (Ans. 8 (emphasis added)).
We also agree with the Examiner (see Ans. 8-10) that Emery teaches that a
change in location is triggered based on a mobile originated call, as set forth
in the claims on appeal. Each of the independent claims on appeal merely
require analyzing a reason for a change in location codes and indicating a
fraudulent mobile station exists if the analysis “has been triggered by a
mobile originated call, a mobile originated short message, mobile originated
unstructured supplementary service data, a mobile originated supplementary
service, or a periodic location update” (claims 1, 5, 11, and 14).
Accordingly, the alternative language of claims 1, 5, 11, and 14, reciting that
a mobile originated call trigger the change in location codes, encompasses
Emery’s fraud detection that is performed “on a per call basis” (see col. 13,
l. 66 to col. 14, l. 20).

Appeal 2009-013416
Application 10/168,051

5
CONCLUSIONS
(1) The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 1, 4, 5, 9-11, and
14 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
(2) Claims 1, 4, 5, 9-11, and 14 are not patentable.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 4, 5, 9-11, and 14 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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