Ex Parte Revel et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 19, 2013

11150557 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 19, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte AGNES M. REVEL, RICHARD C. BURBIDGE,
JEAN-AICARD FABIEN, and ROBERT T. LOVE
____________________

Appeal 2011-006657
Application 11/150,557
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, THU A. DANG,
and CARL W. WHITEHEAD, JR., Administrative Patent Judges.

DANG, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-9 and 18-22 (App. Br. 2). Claims 10-17 have been canceled (App.
Br. 18). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

A. INVENTION
Appellants’ invention is directed to a mobile wireless communication
terminal and method for receiving a notification of a change in a cell serving
the terminal; wherein, the terminal transmits scheduling information to a
new serving cell in response to receiving the notification of the serving cell
change (Abstract).

B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
Claim 1 is exemplary:
1. A method in a mobile wireless communication terminal,
the method comprising:
receiving a notification, at the terminal, of a change in a
cell serving the mobile wireless communication terminal;
transmitting, from the terminal, scheduling information
after receiving the notification of the change in the cell serving
the mobile wireless communication terminal,
the scheduling information indicative of resources
utilized by the mobile wireless communication terminal.

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C. REJECTIONS
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Delp US 6,477,168 B1 Nov. 5, 2002
Chao US 2003/0189909 A1 Oct. 9, 2003
Kwak US 2005/0249164 A1 Nov. 10, 2005

3GPP, 3GPP MAC Protocol Specification TS25.309 v6.2.0 and 3GPP
MAC Protocol Specification TS25.321 R6 (“3GPP”).

Claims 1, 2, 4-8, and 18-22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Chao in view of 3GPP.
Claim 3 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Chao in view of 3GPP and Delp.
Claim 9 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Chao in view of 3GPP and Kwak.

II. ISSUE
The dispositive issue before us is whether the Examiner has erred in
finding that the combination of Chao and 3GPP teaches or would have
suggested “transmitting, from the terminal, scheduling information after
receiving the notification of the change in the cell serving the mobile
wireless communication terminal” (claim 1, emphasis added).

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III. FINDINGS OF FACT
The following Findings of Fact (FF) are shown by a preponderance of
the evidence.
Chao
1. Chao discloses a wireless communication network including the
user equipment (UE); wherein, when the UE is informed of the serving High
Speed Downlink Shared Channel (HS-DSCH) cell change, the UE
autonomously generates a status report indicating the Radio Link Control
(RLC) Packet Data Units (PDU) status in an effort to determine the missed
PDUs (¶¶ [0022], [0023], and [0028]). The data lost as a result of the cell
change is retransmitted to the UE (Fig. 1; ¶ [0029]).
2. The format of the status report includes the sequence number
(SN) of the successfully delivered and received PDUs or the missed PDUs
(¶ [0028]).
3GPP
3. 3GPP discloses a UE that transmits scheduling information to a
serving cell in response to an unspecified event (Spec. ¶ [0004]) and 3GPP
Sec. 9.3.1.1.2).
4. The scheduling information is included in the Media Access
Control (MAC)-e PDU (Sec. 9.3.1.1.2)

IV. ANALYSIS
Claims 1, 2, 8, 18, 19, and 22
Appellants contend that “the PDU status report sent by the UE to the
Node B identifies the sequence numbers of PDUs that are either received or
not received by the UE” (App. Br. 4) and not “‘scheduling information’” as
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defined in Specification (App. Br. 5). Appellants argue that although the
“3GPP specification proposal [discloses that] the UE periodically sends
scheduling information when the UE has data to send or in response to an
unspecified event,” it “should not preclude patentability” (App. Br. 5-6).
Appellants contend further that “replacing the PDU status report of Chao
with scheduling information, as proposed by the Examiner, does not address
the problem posed by Chao, namely, PDU loss and latency” (App. Br. 6).
Appellants finally argue that since “the PDU Status report is indicative of
information that must be re-transmitted by the base station, not resources
utilized by the wireless communication terminal,” “there is no reason to
combine Chao and the 3GPP specification” (id.).
However, the Examiner finds that Chao discloses “transmitting, from
the terminal, scheduling information (status report . . . includ[ing] a list of
sequence numbers of packets” (Ans. 4) and 3GPP “teaches UE transmits
scheduling information to serving cell in response to an unspecified event”
(Ans. 5).
Chao discloses a wireless communication network including a UE that
sends a status report indicating the RLC PDU status in response to
notification that a serving HS-DSCH cell change exists (FF 1). The status
reports include the SN of successfully delivered and received PDUs or the
missed PDUs (FF 2). We find that the method of the UE includes
transmitting data (status report) after receiving notification of a change in the
cell serving the mobile wireless communication terminal (the UE). That is,
we find that Chao’s method comprises “transmitting, from the terminal,
[data] after receiving the notification of the change in the cell serving the
mobile wireless communication terminal” (claim 1).
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In addition, 3GPP discloses that the UE transmits scheduling
information to a serving cell in response to an unspecified event (FF 3). We
find that the method of the UE includes “transmitting, from the terminal,
scheduling information after receiving the notification” of an event (claim
1).
We find that the combination of Chao and 3GPP at least suggests the
contended claim limitation of claim 1.
We also agree with the Examiner’s explicit motivation that combining
the references would be obvious “to provide information to accommodate
cell change operation” (Ans. 5). The Supreme Court has stated that “[t]he
combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be
obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” KSR Int’l Co.
v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Thus, we find no error in the Examiner’s finding that the combination
of Chao’s method for a UE including a step of transmitting a status report in
response to notification of a cell change with the step of transmitting
scheduling information in response to an unspecified event, as disclosed in
3GPP, produces a method for a UE including the step of transmitting
scheduling information in response to notification of a cell change which
would be obvious (Ans. 5; FF 1-3).
Accordingly, we find no error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Chao in view of 3GPP. Appellants make
similar contentions for claims 2 and 19 (App. Br. 6-7 and 12). Therefore,
independent claim 18 having similar claim language; claims 2 and 19; and
claims 8 and 22 (depending from claims 1 and 18) which have not been
argued separately, fall with claim 1.
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Claim 4
Appellants contend that “there is no reason to periodically send the
PDU status report in Chao, since the PDU status report is indicative of
information not received by the wireless terminal” (App. Br. 8). However,
the Examiner finds that “the PDU status report does not only indicate
information not received but also information received by the wireless
terminal” (Ans. 14-15).
Claim 4 does not define “periodically transmitting scheduling
information,” and thus, we give “periodically transmitting scheduling
information” its broadest reasonable interpretation as transmitting
scheduling information more than once.
As noted supra, the UE of Chao sends a status report in response to
notification of a change in cell serving the UE; wherein, the status report
includes the SN of the successfully delivered and received PDUs or the
missed PDUs (FF 1 and 2). Since the UE is a mobile device that moves
from one region serviced by one cell to the next within the wireless
communication network, we find that the UE receives more than one notice
of a change in the cell servicing the UE and, consequently, in response to
such notification, the UE transmits more than one status report (data). That
is, we find that the method of the UE comprises “periodically transmitting
[data] in response to receiving the notification of the change in the cell
serving the mobile wireless communication terminal” (claim 4).
Additionally, 3GPP discloses a UE that transmits scheduling
information to a serving cell in response to an unspecified event (FF 3). We
find that the method of the UE includes “transmitting, from the terminal,
scheduling information after receiving the notification” (claim 1).
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In view of our claim construction above, we find that the combination
of Chao and 3GPP at least suggests the contended claim limitation of claim
4.
Accordingly, we find no error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 4
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Chao in view of 3GPP.
Claims 5, 6, 20, and 21
Appellants contend that “there is no indication that Chao transmits the
PDU status report message in a [Medium Access Control] MAC PDU” and
even though “the 3GPP specification discloses signaling of scheduling
information in a MAC PDU,” it “does not mean that the PDU status report
message of Chao is suitable for transmission in a MAC PDU” (App. Br. 8).
However, the Examiner finds that “[d]espite lacking the term ‘MAC,’
Chao’s PDU status report message does go through [the] MAC layer as the
MAC PDU of the 3GPP specification does” (Ans. 15). The Examiner notes
that “[i]t is well-known in the art that MAC (media access control or
medium access control) [is] a sub-layer of the data link layer specified in the
seven-layer OSI model (layer 2) in [Universal Mobile Telecommunications
System] (UMTS) system” (id.).
3GPP discloses transmission of the scheduling information in a MAC
PDU (FF 4). We find that transmission of the scheduling information in a
MAC PDU comprises “transmitting the scheduling information in a medium
access control protocol data unit” (claim 5).
Accordingly, we find no error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 5
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Chao in view of 3GPP. Appellants make the
same arguments for claims 6, 20, and 21 (App. Br. 8 and 13). Therefore,
claims 6, 20, and 21 (depending from claims 1 and 18), fall with claim 5.
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Claim 7
Appellants contend that “[t]here is no reason to modify the PDU
status report transmission schedule based on when the device has data
buffered for transmission” (App. Br. 9). However, the Examiner finds that
“[t]he PDU status report of Chao is considered as data buffered for
transmission, which corresponds to the 3GPP [S]pecification’s sending
scheduling information when the UE has data to send” (Ans. 16).
Claim 7 does define “buffer[s] data,” and thus, we give “transmitting
scheduling information only when the mobile wireless communication
terminal has buffered data for transmission” its broadest reasonable
interpretation as transmitting scheduling information after any data is
buffered or stored (claim 7).
As noted supra, 3GPP discloses that the UE transmits scheduling
information to a serving cell in response to an unspecified event (FF 3). We
find that in order for the UE to transmit the scheduling information, the
scheduling information must first be buffered or stored on the UE. That is,
3GPP’s method comprises “transmitting scheduling information only when
the mobile wireless communication terminal has buffered data for
transmission” (claim 7).
Accordingly, we find no error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 7
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Chao in view of 3GPP.
Claim 3
Appellants argue that “Kuchibhotla does not preclude patentability
under of 35 U.S.C. 103(c)” (App. Br. 14). The Examiner, however, notes
that claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Chao in view of 3GPP and Delp, not Chao in view of Kuchibhotla (Ans. 17).
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We therefore affirm the rejection of claim 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Chao in view of 3GPP and Delp.
Claim 9
We affirm supra the rejection of parent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Chao in view of 3GPP. Appellants
present no separate argument for the patentability of dependent claim 9. We
therefore affirm the rejection of claim 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Chao in view of 3GPP and Kwak.

V. CONCLUSION AND DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-9 and 18-22 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) is 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)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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