Ex Parte Marchand et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 22, 2016

12734509 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 22, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
121734,509 05/06/2010
129113 7590 04/26/2016
Motorola, a Lenovo Company
222 West Merchandise Mart Plaza
Chicago, IL 60654
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Pierre Marchand
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
NEC08636PUS 6036
EXAMINER
GHOWRW AL, OMAR J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2463
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/26/2016 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):
docketing.lenovo@motorola.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte PIERRE MARCHAND and CHRISTOPHE ROSIK
Appeal2014-003477
Application 12/734,509
Technology Center 2400
Before LINZY T. McCARTNEY, MELISSA A. HAAPALA, and
MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges.
RAAP ALA, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final
rejection of claims 1, 3---6, and 8-10. 1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b ).
We affirm.
1 Claims 2 and 7 are allowed. Pre-App. Br. Rev. 1. The Examiner withdrew
the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 2 and 7 and the 35 U.S.C. § 112,
i-f 2 rejection of claims 6-10. Adv. Act. 1; see also Ans. 2. The Examiner
also withdrew the double patenting rejection following the Pre-Appeal Brief
Request for Review. Pre-App. Br. Rev. 2. We consider the Examiner's
statement that the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection of claims 1-10 is withdrawn
(Ans. 2) to be a typographical error because the Final Action did not contain
a § 101 rejection.
Appeal2014-003477
Application 12/734,509
INVENTION
Appellants' invention is directed to optimizing the estimation by a
base station of the resource to allocate to a user equipment for transmitting
uplink data in a wireless telecommunication network. Spec. i-f 1. Claim 1 is
representative of the subject matter on appeal:
1. A method for triggering a transmission of Buffer Status
Reporting (BSR) information from a User Equipment (UE) to a
base station (BS) in a wireless telecommunication network, said
UE comprising:
a transmission buff er for storing data to be transmitted via
a logical channel, said logical channel being provided with a
priority level and a specific Prioritized Bit Rate (PBR) parameter
indicating a resource level to allocate to the UE for transmitting
the stored data, said BSR information representing an amount of
data present in the transmission buff er of the UE and allowing
said base station to schedule an amount of resource to allocate to
the UE,
the method comprising:
triggering the transmission of Buffer Status Reporting
information if new uplink data arrives in the UE transmission
buffer and said new uplink data belongs to a logical channel for
which a non-null PBR is defined and for which no data already
existed in the UE transmission buffer.
REJECTION ON APPEAL
Claims 1, 3---6, and 8-10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being obvious over the combination of Buffer Status Report and Scheduling
Request Triggers (3GPP TSG RAN WG2 #59bis, NTT DoCoMo, Inc.,
2
Appeal2014-003477
Application 12/734,509
NEC; Oct. 2007) ("NEC")2, Park (US 8,059,597 B2; Nov. 15, 2011), and
Rosa (US 2009/0104916 Al; Apr. 23, 2009).
ISSUE
Appellants' contentions present the following issue: Did the
Examiner err in finding the combined teachings of NEC, Park, and Rosa
teach or suggest triggering the transmission of Buffer Status Reporting
Information if new uplink data arrives in the UE transmission buffer and
said new uplink data belongs to a logical channel for which a non-null P BR
is defined and for which no data already existed in the UE transmission
buffer ("triggering" limitation), as recited in independent claim 1?
ANALYSIS
Appellants contend the combination of NEC, Park, and Rosa does not
teach or suggest the "triggering" limitation recited in claim 1. App. Br. 6-8;
Reply Br. 1-3. Appellants argue Park and Rosa do not make up for NEC's
failure to teach or suggest a PBR. Id. at 6. Appellants state Park merely
discloses a PBR can be set per logical channel of the UE and Rosa discloses
a situation in which there are sufficient resources to serve the sum of the
prioritized bit rates of the RBS. Id. at 6-7. Appellants argue these teachings
are different from triggering transmission of Buffer Status Reporting
information or a logical channel for which a non-null PBR is defined.
Appellants further argue the combination is improper because: 1) the
combination of references does not recognize the problems addressed by the
claimed invention; 2) one of ordinary skill in the art would not have
2 The Examiner refers to this document as both "NEC" and "NPL document
R2-074173." See e.g., Final Act. 14; Ans. 3. Appellants refer to this
document as "NPL document R2-07 4173."
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Appeal2014-003477
Application 12/734,509
combined the disparate references absent impermissible hindsight; 3) there is
no motivation or suggestion in the references or elsewhere to combine the
references; 4) the Examiner has failed to demonstrate the combination has
predictable results; and 5) the Examiner is improperly attempting to "kludge
together" the references. App. Br. 7-8; Reply Br. 2-3. We are not
persuaded by these arguments.
The Examiner finds, and Appellants do not contest, that NEC teaches
all of the "triggering" limitation except the non-null PBR. Final Act. 14--
15;3 Ans. 3--4. The Examiner further finds Park teaches "a logical channel
for which a non-null PBR is defined." Ans. 3--4. We agree with the
Examiner's findings. The cited section of Park teaches a prioritized-bit rate
(PBR) can be set per logical channel of the UE. Park 9:62-10:4.
Appellants' argument that Park does not teach triggering transmission of a
Buffer status report is not persuasive because one cannot show non-
obviousness by attacking references individually where the rejection is based
on a combination of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA
1981 ).
Nor are we persuaded by Appellants' arguments that the combination
is improper. The relevant inquiry in an obviousness analysis is whether the
Examiner has set forth "some articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness." In re Kahn,
441F.3d977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (cited with approval inKSR Int'! Co. v.
Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007)). Contrary to Appellants'
3 In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner refers to the findings made for the
rejection of claim 6. Final Act. 13.
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Appeal2014-003477
Application 12/734,509
arguments, the Examiner finds the references are from the same field of
endeavor (data processing) and the motivation to combine the references is
to allocate resources and to allow the packet scheduler at an eN odeB (base
station) to better differentiate between radio bearers. Ans. 5 (citing Park
1:20-25; Rosa i-f 22); Final Act. 14--15. We find this to be sufficient reason
to support the combination. Appellants do not provide persuasive argument
or evidence that the Examiner's articulated reasoning, supported by evidence
of record, is not a proper rationale for the combination or that the
combination does not yield predictable results.
For the reasons stated above, Appellants do not persuade us that the
Examiner errs in finding the combination of NEC, Park, and Rosa teaches or
suggests the "triggering" limitation recited in claim 1. Accordingly, we
sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of: (1) claim 1; (2) independent
claim 6, for which Appellants rely on the same arguments made for claim 1
(App. Br. 8); and (3) dependent claims 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8-10, which are not
separately argued.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-3, 4--6, and 8-
10.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.50(±).
AFFIRMED
5