Ex Parte Ponce De Leon et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 11, 201613369860 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 11, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. 13/369,860 124192 GOOGLE 7590 FILING DATE 02/09/2012 02/16/2016 C/O Faegre Baker Daniels LLP 311 S. Wacker Drive, Suite 4300 Chicago, IL 60606 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Lorenzo A. Ponce De Leon 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. GP-100463-00-US-DIV 1679 EXAMINER LEE, JUSTIN YE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2644 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/16/2016 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): googleusinternal@faegrebd.com inteas@faegrebd.com michelle.davis@faegrebd.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte LORENZO A. PONCE DE LEON and WILLIAM P. ALBERTH JR. Appeal2014-002924 Application 13/369,860 Technology Center 2600 Before JEFFREYS. SMITH, DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges. SivIITH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal2014-002924 Application 13/369,860 STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-7, which are all the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Representative Claim 1. A method of a serving base station for facilitating a mobile station to perform a fast handoff, comprising: determining, by the serving base station, a high probability target base station with which the mobile station is most likely to perform handoff based on a historical data; requesting, by the serving base station, allocation of air interface resources at the high probability target base station to the mobile station, prior to the mobile station reporting to the serving base station reception of signals from the high probability target base station, to facilitate the mobile station to perform the fast handoff with the high probability target base station. Bahl Wang Lindquist Ogami Park Prior Art US 6,385,454B1 US 2004/0192341 Al US 2004/0235478 Al US 2007 /0238463 Al US 2008/0293423 Al Examiner's Rejections May 7, 2002 Sept. 30, 2004 Nov. 25, 2004 Oct. 11, 2007 Nov. 27, 2008 Claims 1 and 4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Wang, Park, and Ogami. Claims 2, 3, 5, and 6 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Wang, Park, Ogami, and Lindquist. 2 Appeal2014-002924 Application 13/369,860 Claim 7 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Wang, Park, Ogami, and Bahl. ANALYSIS We adopt the findings of fact made by the Examiner in the Final Rejection and Examiner's Answer as our own. We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner for the reasons given in the Examiner's Answer. We highlight the following for emphasis. Section 103 rejection of claims 1 and 4 Appellants contend the combination of Wang, Park, and Ogami does not teach "requesting, by the serving base station, allocation of air interface resources at the high probability target base station to the mobile station, prior to the mobile station reporting to the serving base station reception of signals from the high probability target base station" as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 3-5; Reply Br. 2--4. Appellants' contention is based on the premise that Park alone does not teach multiple base stations. See App. Br. 4; Reply Br. 2. However, the Examiner relies on Wang and Ogami to teach multiple base stations. Ans. 2-3. Appellants have not persuasively rebutted the Examiner's findings. Appellants also contend neither Wang nor Park teaches the base station requesting allocation of resources "prior to the mobile station reporting to the base station reception of signals from the high probability target base station." Reply Br. 3--4. The Examiner finds Park teaches a base station requesting allocation of resources before another station transmits and receives signals. Final Act. 4. Appellants have not provided persuasive 3 Appeal2014-002924 Application 13/369,860 evidence or argument to rebut the Examiner's finding. Further, Appellants' contention that Wang does not teach the base station requesting allocation of resources at the target base station prior to the mobile station receiving signals from the target base station is inconsistent with the teachings of Wang. In particular, we highlight Wang teaches reserving resources in a mobile communication system through the use of historical indicia. Title. A predictor forms a prediction of a path of travel of the mobile system responsive to historical indicia, and the predicted path is utilized in allocating resources to the mobile system. Abstract. A base transceiver station (BTS) 22 containing apparatus 36 includes a path predictor 42 to predict a path of travel of the mobile station based on historical indicia, and a resource requestor 62 to generate a request for allocation of resources to the mobile station. Fig. 1; i-fi-135, 40-46. For example, ifthe path predictor predicts the mobile system routinely travels through "abcdefg" cells (such as those cells shown in Figure 2), the resource requestor can request resources for predicted path segment "be" (i-f 61-62), predicted path segment "cde" (i-f 63), and predicted path segment "de" (i-f 64). Appellants have not persuasively distinguished the claimed "high probability target base station" from the target base stations in the predicted path shown in Figure 2 and discussed in paragraphs 61 through 64 of Wang. The resource requestor of the serving base transceiver station of Wang, which requests allocation of air interface resources along the predicted path of travel, teaches "requesting, by the serving base station, teaches requesting "allocation of air interface resources at the high probability target base station to the mobile station, prior to the mobile station reporting to the 4 Appeal2014-002924 Application 13/369,860 serving base station reception of signals from the high probability target base station" within the meaning of claim 1. We sustain the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Appellants do not present arguments for the patentability of claim 4, which falls with claim 1. Section 103 rejection of claims 2, 3, 5, and 6 Claim 2 recites "if a handoff procedure ... is successful within a predefined time period, updating the historical data to reflect a successful handoff .... " Appellants contend the timer element taught by Lindquist is not relevant to whether the handoff is successful. App. Br. 7, citing Lindquist i-f 83. Paragraphs 82 and 83 of Lindquist teach gathering statistics of successful and unsuccessful handoffs during a predetermined time period. Appellants have not persuasively distinguished gathering statistics of a successful handoff during a predetermined time period as taught by Lindquist from updating historical data to reflect a successful handoff if the handoff procedure is successful within a predefined time period as recited in claim 2. Cumulative to the Examiner's findings, we highlight paragraphs 44 and 62 of Wang as evidencing that handoff timers and indicating a selected time interval has timed out were within the level of skill in the art. Similarly, Appellants have not persuasively distinguished gathering statistics of an unsuccessful handoff during a predetermined time period as taught by Lindquist from updating historical data to reflect an unsuccessful handoff if the handoff procedure is not successful within a predefined time period as recited in claim 5. We sustain the rejections of claims 2 and 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. 5 Appeal2014-002924 Application 13/369,860 Section 103 rejection of claim 7 Appellants present arguments for patentability of claim 7 similar to those presented for claim 1, which we find unpersuasive. App. Br. 8. For the same reasons as claim 1, we sustain the rejection of claim 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. DECISION The rejections of claims 1-7 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). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(±). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation