Ex Parte Sahlin et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 8, 201612936301 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 8, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/936,301 10/04/2010 27045 7590 ERICSSON INC 6300 LEGACY DRIVE MIS EVR 1-C-11 PLANO, TX 75024 09/12/2016 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Henrik Sahlin 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. P25296-US1 1558 EXAMINER WEIDNER, TIMOTHY J ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2476 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/12/2016 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): kara.coffman@ericsson.com kathryn.lopez@ericsson.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte HENRIK SAHLIN, ULF LINDGREN, and KAMBIZ ZANGI Appeal2015-001760 Application 12/936,301 Technology Center 2400 Before ERIC S. FRAHM, LINZY T. McCARTNEY, and JEFFREY A. STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judges. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL INTRODUCTION This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the final rejection of claims 1-15. Claims 2 and 10 were canceled by Appellants after final (see Advisory Act. mailed Nov. 14, 2013, boxes 7b, 12, and 15; see also Advisory Act., p. 2). Therefore, only claims 1, 3-9, and 11-15 are before us on appeal. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Appeal2015-001760 Application 12/936,301 Independent claim 1 is exemplary of the subject matter of Appellants' disclosed invention, and is reprinted below with emphases added to key portions of the claim: 1. A method of radio transmission in an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) based cellular wireless radio transmission system, wherein radio access equipment of said OFDM based cellular wireless radio transmission system connects to multiple geographically spread radio antennas of a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) for transmitting and receiving radio signals to and from user equipment arranged for operating in said radio transmission system, the method comprising the steps of: - establishing transmit timings for radio transmission between said user equipment and said radio antennas of said DAS, said transmit timings being construed as any information provided or measured from which data relevant to absolute propagation times of radio signals between said user equipment and said radio antennas of said DAS can be established, and - scheduling said radio transmission based on said established transmit timings, wherein said scheduling comprises selecting at least one radio antenna of said DAS for transmitting and receiving radio signals to and from said user equipment, and wherein each selected radio antenna of said DAS transmits and receives radio signals to and from said user equipment with equal transmit timings if more than one radio antenna for said DAS is selected. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection (Final Act. 5-8; Ans. 2- 4) in light of Appellants' arguments that the Examiner has erred (App. Br. 5-11; Reply Br. 1-9), as well as the Examiner's response to Appellants' 2 Appeal2015-001760 Application 12/936,301 arguments in the Briefs (Ans. 5-9). We concur with Appellants' contentions (App. Br. 5-8; Reply Br. 1-5) that the Examiner erred in finding independent claims 1 and 9 as anticipated by Fein (US 7,522,552 B2; issued Apr. 21, 2009) because Fein fails to expressly or inherently disclose the method of (claim 1 ), and radio access equipment for (claim 9), OFDM radio transmission using a DAS including scheduling the radio transmission based on established transmit timings, as set forth in claims 1 and 9. 1 In particular, we agree with Appellants (see App. Br. 9) that Fein's discussion of data packets "transmitted at the same time, on the same carrier frequency, with the same spreading code, and with the same polarization" (col. 8, 11. 49-53) does not address whether signals transmitted ( 1) between the user equipment and one radio antenna, and (2) between the user equipment and another radio antenna, will have the same absolute propagation time to both antennae, as required by claim 1. Neither the Examiner's (i) rejection (see Final Act. 5---6 and 8 citing Fig. 8 and col. 48), nor (ii) response to Appellants' arguments (Ans. 5-8 citing Fig. 8 and col. 48), in this regard convince us otherwise. 1 We note that the Examiner's anticipation rejection appears to improperly combine multiple embodiments from Fein. See, e.g., Net Moneyin, Inc. v. VeriSign, Inc., 545 F.3d 1359, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (For anticipation, "'[t]he [prior art] reference must clearly and unequivocally disclose the claimed [invention] or direct those skilled in the art to the [invention] without any need for picking, choosing, and combining various disclosures not directly related to each other by the teachings of the cited reference."' (parenthetically quoting In re Arkley, 455 F.2d 586, 587 (CCPA 1972))). Specifically, the Examiner's rejection of claim 1 (Final Act. 6) cites Figures 3---6, which are described as separate embodiments in column 38, line 54 to column 39, line 3, and also relies on Fein's embodiment shown in Figures 8-10 and described in column 39, lines 12-19 and column 48, line 14 to column 52, line 64. 3 Appeal2015-001760 Application 12/936,301 In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 1 and 9 as being anticipated by Fein. For similar reasons, based on the dependency of respective claims 1 and 9, we do not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 3-8 and 11-15. DECISION2 The Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 3-9, and 11-15 is reversed. REVERSED 2 Our finding is directed to a determination of whether or not Fein anticipates the invention set forth in claims 1, 3-9, and 11-15. We make no finding regarding whether or not it would have been obvious to use the transmitters 502, antennae 501, scheduler 511, and timer 508 taught by Fein (see Fig. 10 and col. 50, 1. 63 to col. 52, 1. 64) to perform the recited method of OFDM transmission with a DAS. We leave such a conclusion to the Examiner's consideration during subsequent prosecution. 4 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation