Ex Parte Nuutinen et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 21, 201713148722 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 21, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 13/148,722 08/10/2011 Jukka-Pekka Nuutinen 20150157-01 4311 126149 7590 Key sight Technologies, Inc. C/O CPA Global 900 Second Avenue South Suite 600 Minneapolis, MN 55402 EXAMINER FOTAKIS, ARISTOCRATIS ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2633 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/24/2017 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): key sightdocketing @ cpaglobal. com notice, legal @key sight, com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JUKKA-PEKKA NUUTINEN, MARKO PYY, and MARKO TAPANINAHO Appeal 2017-004468 Application 13/148,7221 Technology Center 2600 Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, DAVID M. KOHUT, and LYNNE E. PETTIGREW, Administrative Patent Judges. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Non-Final Rejection of claims 1 and 3-12. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Keysight Technologies, Inc. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2017-004468 Application 13/148,722 INVENTION Appellants’ invention relates to a method and apparatus for measuring and reducing interference responses in a communication signal. Spec. 1:8- 10; 2:16-27. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Claims 1, 7, and 8 are independent. Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reproduced below. 1. A method for extracting a signal component and an interference component from communication measurements, comprising: receiving and storing a communication signal comprising the signal component and the interference component; feeding the received communication signal through a filter to detect a strongest impulse response peak of a plurality of impulse response peaks corresponding to a plurality of respective paths in the signal component or in the interference component and to provide only the strongest impulse response peak as an output from the filter; feeding the output from the filter to a regenerator to reconstruct a path of the signal component or of the interference component according to a reconstruction equation using only the strongest impulse response peak; feeding an output from the regenerator to a subtractor to obtain a residual signal component or a residual interference component from the communication signal; 2 Appeal 2017-004468 Application 13/148,722 feeding an output of the subtractor through the same filter, the same regenerator, and the same subtractor to obtain a next residual signal component or a next residual interference component from the communication signal until a whole signal component or a whole interference component is reconstructed from the reconstructed paths; and emulating in a test environment using at least one of the reconstructed whole signal component and the reconstructed whole interference component. REJECTIONS AT ISSUE I. The Examiner has rejected claims 1,3,4, and 7-10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Khayrallah (US 2009/0257477 Al; Oct. 15, 2009), Bar-Ness (US 2005/0207475 Al; Sept. 22, 2005), Primo (US 2008/0095275 Al; Apr. 24, 2008), andNuutinen (WO 2007/080209 Al; July 19, 2007). Non-Final Act. 4-7.2 II. The Examiner has rejected claims 5, 6, 11, and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Khayrallah, Bar-Ness, Primo, Nuutinen, and Chen (US 2003/0219069 Al; Nov. 27, 2003). Non-Final Act. 8-10. III. The Examiner has rejected claims 1,3,4, and 7-10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lee (US 6,574,204 Bl; June 3, 2003) andNuutinen. Non-Final Act. 10-12. 2 Throughout this Decision we refer to: Appellants’ Specification filed August 10, 2011, the Appeal Brief filed Sept. 16, 2016; Reply Brief filed Jan. 27, 2017; Non-Final Office Action dated March 23, 2016; and the Examiner’s Answer dated Nov. 28, 2016. 3 Appeal 2017-004468 Application 13/148,722 IV. The Examiner has rejected claims 5, 6, 11, and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lee, Nuutinen, and Chen. Non-Final Act. 12-14. ANALYSIS We have reviewed Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief and the Reply Brief, the Examiner’s rejections, and the Examiner’s response to Appellants’ arguments. Appellants’ arguments have not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1 and 3-12. Rejections I and II Appellants argue Khayrallah teaches obtaining residual signal or residual interference components from previous residual components rather than “from the communication signal,” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 8; Reply. Br. 4. More specifically, Appellants argue Khayrallah teaches subtracting each of successive regenerator outputs from the previous residual signal (the previous residual signal/interference component) to obtain successive residual signal/interference components of the communication signal. App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 4. As such, Appellants’ argument is premised on a claim interpretation requiring directly subtracting successive regenerator outputs only from the original communication signal and not from previous residual components. The Examiner provides a comprehensive response to Appellants’ arguments on pages 2-5 of the Answer. In short, the Examiner construes the claim to include subtracting the successive regenerator outputs indirectly from the communication signal, i.G., from the residual signals obtained from the communication signal. Ans. 3. Based on this claim interpretation, the 4 Appeal 2017-004468 Application 13/148,722 Examiner explains Khayrallah teaches obtaining residual signal components from previous residual signals obtained from the original communication signal, which meets the claim language. Id. at 4. As such, the Examiner’s position is that Appellants’ argument (that Khayrallah’s outputs are not obtained from the communication signal) is based on a narrow claim construction that improperly relies on limitations not recited in the rejected claim. Id. The Examiner’s broader claim interpretation is reasonable. As indicated by the Examiner, the claim’s plain language does not limit successive regenerator outputs as being obtained only or directly from the original communication signal. See Ans. 3,5. Further, Appellants’ Specification does not require the successive regenerator outputs being subtracted only from the original communication signal, as argued by Appellants. Rather, the Examiner points to Figures 4 and 6 of the subject application, which suggests successive regenerator outputs may be subtracted from previous residual signals that have been fed back into the system, see line 4-22 in Fig. 4. Ans. 5; see also Spec. Figs. 4, 6. Additionally, the Specification discloses the first “residual signal can then be forwarded ... to achieve the new impulse response, from which the second signal component can be estimated .... This result can then again be subtracted from the first residual signal and so on.” Spec. 5:29-33. In other words, the first residual signal may be fed back to the subtractor, and the second residual signal component is subtracted from that first previous residual signal and so on. The plain language of the claims and the Specification at page 5 favor the Examiner’s position. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation 5 Appeal 2017-004468 Application 13/148,722 consistent with the Specification, the residual components obtained from previous residual signals can be considered “from the communication signal,” because all the residual components are from, or traceable back to, the original communication signal. Because Appellants’ argument is based on an improperly narrow claim interpretation, Appellants have not persuaded us of Examiner error in finding Khayrallah teaches “from the communication signal.” Independent claims 7 and 8 recite similar limitations as claim 1 and are not argued separately. Claims 3 and 4 depend upon claim 1, and claims 9 and 10 depend upon claim 8, none of which are argued separately. Claims 5, 6, 11, and 12 are not argued separately. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, and 7-10 as unpatentable over Khayrallah, Bar-Ness, Primo, andNuutinen and the Examiner’s rejection of claims 5, 6, 11, and 12 as unpatentable over Khayrallah, Bar-Ness, Primo, Nuutinen, and Chen. Rejections III and IV Regarding claim 1, the Examiner finds, and Appellants do not dispute, that Lee teaches subtracting successive regenerator outputs from previous residual signals. App. Br. 10; Reply. Br. 6. Appellants argue the Lee rejection with the same argument as discussed above, regarding the Examiner’s interpretation of “from the communication signal” to include previous residual signals from the communication signal. App. Br. 9-11; Reply. Br. 5-6. For the same reasons as above, we find the Examiner’s claim interpretation to be broad, but reasonable, and consistent with Appellants’ disclosure. Accordingly, Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive. 6 Appeal 2017-004468 Application 13/148,722 Independent claims 7 and 8 recite similar limitations as claim 1 and are not argued separately. Claims 3 and 4 depend upon claim 1, and claims 9 and 10 depend upon claim 8, none of which are argued separately. Claims 5, 6, 11, and 12 are not argued separately. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1,3,4, and 7-10 as unpatentable over Lee and Nuutinen, and the Examiner’s rejection of claims 5, 6, 11, and 12 as unpatentable over Lee, Nuutinen, and Chen. DECISION The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1 and 3-12 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)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation