Ex Parte Sahin et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 23, 2018

14500672 (P.T.A.B. May. 23, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/500,672 09/29/2014
27045 7590
ERICSSON INC.
6300 LEGACY DRIVE
MIS EVR 1-C-11
PLANO, TX 75024
05/25/2018
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Yildirim Sahin
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.
P32632-US3 9396
EXAMINER
CAIRNS, THOMAS R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2468
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/25/2018 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):
michelle.sanderson@ericsson.com
pam.ewing@ericsson.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte YILDIRIM SARIN and LOUDON LEE CAMPBELL
Appeal2017-010748
Application 14/500,672
Technology Center 2400
Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, LARRY J. HUME, and
JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges.
CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 26, 27, 29--31, and 33-35, which are all of the
claims pending in the application. 2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b ).
We affirm.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Telefonaktiebolaget
LM Ericsson. App. Br. 1.
2 Claims 1-25, 28, and 32 were cancelled.
Appeal2017-010748
Application 14/500,672
INVENTION
Appellants' invention relates to relocating and restoring connections
through a failed serving gateway and traffic offloading. Spec. Title. Claim
26 is illustrative and reads as follows:
26. A method performed at a mobility management entity
(MME) configured to communicate with one or more serving
gateways and configured to control connections that pass
through at least one serving gateway of a radio
telecommunications network, the method comprising:
detecting, at the MME, that a first serving gateway has
failed;
determining a set of existing connections affected by the
first serving gateway failure;
identifying one or more servmg gateways m
communication with the MME;
initiating, by the MME, relocation of the set of existing
connections to at least one of the identified one or more serving
gateways;
detecting that communications to the first serving gateway
have been restarted; and
restoring at least one of the set of existing connections to
the first serving gateway.
REJECTIONS
Claims 26, 27, 30, 31, 34, and 35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Liu et al. (US 8,117,337
B2; published Feb. 14, 2012) ("Liu"), Olsson et al. (US 8,797,846 B2;
published Aug. 5, 2014) ("Olsson") and Ramankutty (US 2010/0272115 Al;
published Oct. 28, 2010) ("Ramankutty I"). Final Act. 3--4.
Claims 29 and 33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over the combination of Liu, Olsson, Ramankutty I, and
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Application 14/500,672
Ramankutty et al. (US 8,200,830 B2; issued June 12, 2012) ("Ramankutty
II"). Final Act. 8.
ANALYSIS
In rejecting claim 26, the Examiner found Liu discloses all of the
recited limitations, except "identifying one or more serving gateways in
communication with the MME," for which the Examiner relied on Olsson,
and "wherein the connection is a set of existing connections," for which the
Examiner relied on Ramankutty I. Final Act. 4---6.
Appellants contend the Examiner erred because the combination of
Liu, Olsson, and Ramankutty I fails to teach or suggest the limitations
"detecting, at the MME, that a first serving gateway has failed" and
"restoring at least one of the set of existing connections to the first serving
gateway," as recited in claim 26. App. Br. 6. Appellants argue the MME
recited in claim 26 cannot reasonably be construed as broad enough to
include the aggregation device taught in Liu, and is not just any network
device. App. Br. 10; Reply Br. 2. Appellants further argue Liu's
aggregation device detects link failures between the aggregation device itself
and the service network or router (i.e., access device), while claim 26
requires the MME to detect whether another element under control of the
MME ("a first serving gateway") has failed. Id. at 10-11. Appellants also
argue that, in Liu, the access device, not the aggregation device, restores the
connection. Id. at 12. Appellants argue Olsson and Ramankutty I fail to
cure the deficiencies of Liu. Id. at 13.
Appellants' arguments are not persuasive. Appellants acknowledge
the Examiner relied on Olsson as teaching an MME identifying one or more
serving gateways. App. Br. 12 (citing Final Act. 6). The Examiner also
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Application 14/500,672
relied on Olsson as teaching an MME that detects a first serving gateway has
failed. Ans. 4 (citing Olsson Figs. 2 and 3, cols. 8:19--28, 9:3-11).
According to the Examiner:
Id.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the
art at the time of invention to use Olsson to modify Liu in order
to identify the point-to-multipoint network as a radio
telecommunications network, the aggregation device as an
MME, and detecting a network failure as detecting that a first
serving gateway has failed, because 0 ls son's [sic] discloses a
radio telecommunications network as a type of point-to-
multipoint network (Olsson Figure 1, Column 7 Lines 20-33),
an MME is a type of aggregation device or may be comprised
in a type of aggregation device (Olsson Col. 7 Lines 55-61),
and failure of a serving gateway is a type of network failure
(Olsson Col. 8 Lines 5-18).
In the Reply Brief, Appellants fail to persuasively rebut the
Examiner's factual findings and conclusion of obviousness based on the
combined teachings of Liu and Olsson. Instead, Appellants restate the
argument that Liu does not teach "an MME, or any device which could
reasonably be construed as an MME." Reply Br. 3. Nonobviousness,
however, cannot be established by attacking the references individually
when the rejection is predicated upon a combination of prior art disclosures.
See In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The test for
obviousness is not whether the claimed invention is expressly suggested in
any one or all of the references, but whether the claimed subject matter
would have been obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art in light of the
combined teachings of those references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425
(CCPA 1981).
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Application 14/500,672
The Examiner also concluded:
[A ]s read in the light of the Specification, the "restore"
limitation of claim 26 does not require the MME to restore
connections by itself, but in concert with a serving gateway, by
the MME sending the serving gateway information identifying
a connection to be restored and the serving gateway restores the
connections based on that information, which is exactly the
same progression of events disclosed in Liu (as modified by
Olsson and Ramankutty) where the aggregation device (MME)
notifies the access device (serving gateway) of link/network
recovery and the access device (serving gateway) restores the
link/network connection (Figure 5).
Ans. 5. Appellants fail to persuasively rebut the Examiner's broad but
reasonable interpretation of the "restore" limitation of claim 26 by showing
it is overly broad, unreasonable, or inconsistent with Appellants'
Specification. 3 See Reply Br. 2-3 (citing App. Br. 11-12).
For these reasons, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding
the combination of Liu, Olsson, and Ramankutty I teaches or suggests the
disputed limitations of claim 26.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's§ 103 rejection of
representative independent claim 26, as well as the Examiner's§ 103
rejection of independent claim 30, which Appellants argue is patentable for
similar reasons. App. Br. 14. We also sustain the Examiner's rejection of
dependent claims 27, 29, 31, and 33-35, not argued separately. Id.
3 We give the contested claim limitations the broadest reasonable
interpretation (BRI) consistent with the Specification. See In re Morris, 127
F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). Because "applicants may amend claims to
narrow their scope, a broad construction during prosecution creates no
unfairness to the applicant or patentee." In re ICON Health and Fitness,
Inc., 496 F.3d 1374, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (internal citation omitted).
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Application 14/500,672
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision to reject claims 26, 27, 29--31, and
33-35.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED
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