Ex Parte Nara

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jun 3, 2008

10855040 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 3, 2008)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
_____________

Ex parte AKIRA NARA
_____________

Appeal 2008-0219
Application 10/855,040
Technology Center 2600
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Decided: June 3, 2008
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Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, ROBERT E. NAPPI,
and KEVIN F. TURNER, Administrative Patent Judges.

NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6 of the rejection of
claims 1 through 14.
We reverse the Examiner’s rejections of these claims.
INVENTION

The invention is directed to a wideband signal analyzer that has a
plurality of frequency conversion paths for simultaneously processing
different contiguous frequency bands of an input signal. See page 3 of
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Application 10/855,040

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Appellant’s Specification. Claim 1 is representative of the invention and is
reproduced below:
1. A wideband signal analyzer comprising:
a plurality of frequency conversion paths having different
contiguous frequency bands to which an input signal is provided for
producing respective groups of time domain data;
means for interpolating the time domain data in each group to
increase the number of data points in each group, producing
respective groups of interpolated time domain data; and
means for calculating from the interpolated time domain data
groups a suite of frequency domain data.

REFERENCES

Huang US 6,154,443 Nov. 28, 2000
Kang US 6,370,133 B1 Apr. 9, 20002
Ali US 2002/0080862 A1 Jun. 27, 2002

ATIS Committee T1A1, Nyquist rate, last generated Feb. 28, 2001;
http://www.atis.org/tg2k/_nyquist_ rate.html

REJECTIONS AT ISSUE
Claims 1, 3 through 6, 8, and 10 through 13 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Huang in view of Ali. The
Examiner’s rejection is on pages 3 and 4 of the Answer.
Claims 2 and 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Huang in view of Ali and ATIS Committee T1A1. The
Examiner’s rejection is on pages 4 and 5 of the Answer.
Claims 7 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Huang in view of Ali and Kang. The Examiner’s
rejection is on pages 5 and 6 of the Answer.
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Application 10/855,040

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Throughout the opinion, we make reference to the Brief (received
September 29, 2006) and the Answer (mailed February 9, 2007) for the
respective details thereof.

ANALYSIS
Appellant contends that the Examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) is in error. Appellant argues, on pages 13 and 14 of the Brief, that
Haung’s user paths do not correspond to the claimed “a plurality of
frequency conversion paths.” Appellant’s arguments assert that the claim is
in means plus function format and that Huang does not teach the
corresponding structure. The Examiner responds, stating that the claims do
not recite the frequency conversion limitation in means plus function format.
(Ans. 8). The Examiner finds, on pages 7 and 8 of the Answer, that the
paths from the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) unit (item 48 Fig. 1b) to and
though each FFT-Based receiver (item 50 Fig. 1b) meets the claimed
frequency conversion paths. Further the Examiner states “[t]he paths have
different frequency bands provided to them through an input signal from the
FFT transform unit 48.” (Ans. 8).
Appellant’s arguments have persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s
rejection. Independent claim 1 recites “a plurality of frequency conversion
paths having different contiguous frequency bands.” Independent claim 8
recites a method and includes a similar limitation. Thus, the scope of the
independent claims includes that there are a plurality of frequency
conversion paths and that the paths have different contiguous frequency
bands. Contrary to Appellant’s arguments, we do not find that claim 1
recites the frequency conversion path in means plus function format.
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Application 10/855,040

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Method claim 8 is not in means plus function format. Thus, we do not
consider the scope of the claims to be limited by the disclosed structure and
equivalents which correspond to the claimed frequency conversion paths.
Nonetheless, we do not find that the Examiner has presented sufficient facts
to prove that Huang teaches or suggests the claimed frequency conversion
paths.
As identified supra, the scope of the independent claims includes that
the frequency paths have different contiguous frequency bands. The
Examiner states on page 7 of the Answer:
Figure 1B demonstrates a plurality of paths with respect to a
single path for each of a plurality of receivers. The Examiner
considers Huang to specifically teach that each user has their own
receiver, such that Figure 1B indicates L amount of receivers, with
one receiver for each of L users (see col. 3, line 39 that discloses a
CDMA RAKE receiver (50) "for each user" and col. 5, lines 33-37
which disclose that each user has the same type of receiver (implying
that each user does not share the same specific individual unit). With
this understanding, the Examiner believes that "a plurality of
frequency conversion paths" is disclosed in the reference. While the
L users of the uplink configuration in Fig. 1B share a common FFT
Transform Unit (48) (as addressed by the Applicant), Fig. 3A is a
block diagram of an uplink RAKE receiver with optional reserving
main paths. Therefore the plurality of RAKE receivers (50), each
include reserve main paths (140) and average unit (138).

We disagree with the Examiners finding, as we find no discussion in
the cited portions of Huang which discusses that each path receives a
different contiguous frequency band as recited in the claim. Further, the
Examiner’s statement on page 8 of the Answer that “[t]he nature of the input
signal is contiguous in that the signal is sampled at a sampling rate, thus
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Application 10/855,040

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making the samples adjacent in time” addresses continuity in time and does
not address how the paths have contiguous frequency bands as claimed.
The Examiner has not found, nor do we find that Ali teaches or
suggests “a plurality of frequency conversion paths having different
contiguous frequency bands” as claimed. For the aforementioned reasons,
we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 3 through 6, 8, and
10 through 13, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Huang
in view of Ali
The Examiner has not found, nor do we find that the teachings of
ATIS Committee T1A1, or Kang, remedy the noted deficiency in the
rejection of claims 1 and 8. Accordingly, we will not sustain the Examiner’s
rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of dependent claims 2, 7, 9, and 14, for
the reasons discussed with respect to independent claims 1 and 8.

ORDER
The decision of the Examiner is reversed.

REVERSED

KIS

MICHAEL A. NELSON
TEKTRONIX, INC.
14150 SW KARL BRAUN DRIVE
P. O. BOX 500, M/S 50-LAW
BEAVERTON, OR 97077