Ex Parte Oroskar et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 28, 2017

14095992 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 28, 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.
14/095,992 12/03/2013 Siddharth S. Oroskar 7545a 7015
28005 7590
SPRINT
6391 SPRINT PARKWAY
KSOPHTO101-Z2100
OVERLAND PARK, KS 66251-2100
EXAMINER
MITCHELL, NATHAN A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2641
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/30/2017 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):
6450patdocs @ sprint.com
steven.j.funk@sprint.com
docketing @ mbhb .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte Sprint Spectrum L.P.
Appeal 2017-001045
Application 14/095,992
Technology Center 2600
Before JASON V. MORGAN, BETH Z. SHAW, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2017-001045
Application 14/095,992
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1—17.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
THE INVENTION
The application is directed to “a radio access network (RAN) and/or a
wireless communication device (WCD) [that] may be able to determine
when the WCD is likely to roam to a coverage area served by a different
service provider” and “may then proactively take steps to reduce the
likelihood of this roaming.” (Spec. 6:2—5.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is
representative:
1. A method comprising:
determining a likelihood of roaming, wherein the likelihood
of roaming indicates a likelihood that a wireless communication
device (WCD) will be handed off from a preferred coverage area
that is operated by a home service provider, to a non-preferred
coverage area that is operated by another service provider that is
different from the home service provider, and
wherein the WCD determines the likelihood of roaming; and
using, by the WCD, the likelihood of roaming as a basis for
managing an active set of the WCD.
1 The named inventors are Siddharth S. Oroskar, Srikanth Pulugurta, and
Maulik K. Shah.
2 Claims 18, 19, and 21 are allowed. (See Ans. 2.)
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Application 14/095,992
THE REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Aerrabotu et al. US 2005/0130661 A1 June 16, 2005
Olvera-Hemandez et al. US 2006/0227745 Al Oct. 12, 2006
Lee et al. US 2007/0149197 Al June 28, 2007
Singh et al. US 2012/0076018 Al Mar. 29, 2012
THE REJECTIONS3
1. Claims 1, 3, and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Lee and Aerrabotu. (See Final Act. 4—6.)
2. Claim 2 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Lee, Aerrabotu, and Olvera-Hemandez. (See Final Act.
7.)
3. Claims 4, 5, 8, 9, 14, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Lee, Aerrabotu, and Singh. (See Final Act. 7—
9.)
ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds that Lee discloses the features of claim 1, except
that “Lee fails to disclose that the handover would relate to handing over
from a preferred coverage area to a non-preferred coverage area, wherein the
preferred coverage area is operated by a home service provider and the non-
3 Claims 6, 7, 10-12, 16, and 17 are allowable but objected to as being
dependent on rejected base claim. (See Ans. 2.)
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Application 14/095,992
preferred area is operated by another service provider.” (Final Act. 6.) The
Examiner further finds, however, that “Aerrabotu discloses roaming from a
preferred network to a non-preferred network and vice versa . . . , wherein
the preferred network is operated by the home provider and the non­
preferred is operator by another provider” and that it would have been
obvious to combine Lee and Aerrabotu. {Id.)
Appellant argues “Lee does not teach, ‘determining a likelihood of
roaming, wherein the likelihood of roaming indicates a likelihood that a . . .
WCD . . . will be handed off from a preferred coverage area that is operated
by a home service provider, to a non-preferred coverage area that is operated
by another service provider that is different from the home service provider,’
as recited in Claim 1.” (App. Br. 4.)
The Examiner responds that “Lee does indeed disclose a probability
of a mobile station moving from one coverage to a neighboring coverage
area” and “discloses that the movement can be roaming.” (Ans. 4.) The
Examiner also responds that “Aerrabotu discloses preferred and non­
preferred networks . . . and that a user equipment can roam from a home
network to a network operated by another provider.” (Id. at 5.)
We agree with Appellant that the rejection, as formulated by the
Examiner, does not establish prima facie obviousness. Lee describes a
method for managing an active set by storing identifiers of base stations.
(Lee H30-31.) Using the stored identifiers, the system determines
probabilities that the mobile station will move to neighboring base stations.
(Id. 132.) “The mobile station 100 tends to repeatedly roam through a
familiar location such as home or work and the probability of the tendency
may be used as information for predicting a base station to which the mobile
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Application 14/095,992
station will relocate.” (Id.) Paragraph 33 states that “the mobile station 100
uses ... a moving path probability when adding a base station to an active
set.”
Although Lee teaches determining the likelihood of moving to a
particular neighboring base station based on the history of movement of a
device, the Examiner has not explained sufficiently how this would have
taught or suggested, to one of ordinary skill in the art, “determining a
likelihood of roaming, wherein the likelihood of roaming indicates a
likelihood that a wireless communication device (WCD) will be handed off
from a preferred coverage area that is operated by a home service provider,
to a non-preferred coverage area that is operated by another service provider
that is different from the home service provider.” It may be that the
potential new base station happens to be operated by a different provider, but
the Examiner has not sufficiently explained how that teaches a likelihood of
roaming that indicates a likelihood of moving to a base station of a different
provider, which is a different concept. As described in the Specification, for
example, determining the likelihood of moving to a base station of a
different provider allows for the home provider’s base stations to be
preferred. (See Spec. 6:17—20 (“[A] WCD and/or a RAN may attempt to
reduce the likelihood of a handoff to a non-preferred coverage area by
adjusting one or more of the WCD’s active-set parameters in an effort to
increase the number of sectors that are included in the WCD’s active set.”).)
We disagree with the Examiner’s position that “[tjhere is nothing in
the claim that requires recognition that the move is to a non-preferred area”
(Ans. 4), because claims specifically require determining a “likelihood of
roaming,” where “the likelihood of roaming indicates a likelihood” that the
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Application 14/095,992
device “will be handed off from a preferred coverage area ... to a non­
preferred coverage area.” We thus do not agree that “the claim language
doesn’t distinguish from a situation where there is a likelihood of handover
to a coverage area that just happens to be a non-preferred coverage area.”
(Nov. 3, 2015 Advisory Action at 1.)
Because we find Appellant’s argument persuasive, we do not sustain
the rejection of claim 1 or the rejections of claims 2—19, all of which contain
the same or an analogous limitation.
DECISION
The rejections of claims 1—19 are reversed.
REVERSED
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