Ex Parte Sedarat

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 30, 2015

11377114 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 30, 2015)

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.
11/377,114 03/15/2006 Hossein Sedarat 2875.3800001 5985
49579 7590 05/01/2015
STERNE, KESSLER, GOLDSTEIN & FOX P.L.L.C.
1100 NEW YORK AVENUE, N.W.
WASHINGTON, DC 20005
EXAMINER
YU, LIHONG
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2631
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/01/2015 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte HOSSEIN SEDARAT
____________

Appeal 2013-001211
Application 11/377,114
Technology Center 2600
____________

Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, BRUCE R. WINSOR, and
CHARLES J. BOUDREAU, Administrative Patent Judges.

THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner
finally rejecting claims 1, 3–10, and 12–23, all the claims pending in the
application. Claims 2 and 11 are cancelled. We have jurisdiction over the
appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). An Oral Hearing was held on April 23, 2015.
We AFFIRM-IN-PART.
The present invention relates generally to tracking the parameters of a
source of periodic Impulse Noise in a communication system. Spec. 1.

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Application 11/377,114

Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A method for estimation of impulse noise within
frames of a multi-carrier system, each of the frames being
characterized by a frame number from a plurality of frame numbers,
comprising:
detecting the frames in the multi-carrier system that are
affected by the impulse noise; and
estimating one or more parameters of the impulse noise
using the frame numbers of the frames that are affected by the impulse
noise,
wherein the one or more parameters of the impulse noise
comprise a period, an offset[,] and a duration of the impulse noise.

Appellant appeals the following six (6) rejections:
R1. Claims 1, 10, and 20–23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Rao (US 5,978,760, Nov. 2, 1999) and Paivike (US
6,396,827 B1, May 28, 2002);
R2. Claims 3, 4, 12, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Rao, Paivike, and Hamilton (US 4,009,371, Feb. 22,
1977);
R3. Claims 5–7 and 14–16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Rao, Paivike, and Bodenschatz (US 2002/0122515
A1, Sept. 5, 2002);
R4. Claims 8 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Rao, Paivike, and Luo (US 6,378,234 B1, Apr. 30, 2002);
R5. Claims 9 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Rao, Paivike, and Cai (US 6,205,410 B1, Mar. 20, 2001);
and
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Application 11/377,114

R6. Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Rao, Paivike, and Yousef (US 7,215,727 B2, May 8,
2007).

Claim Groupings
Based on Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief, we will decide
the appeal on the basis of claims 1, 9, and 20 as set forth below. See 37
C.F.R. 41.37(c)(1)(iv).

ANALYSIS
Claims 1, 3–8, 10, 12–17, 19, 22, and 23
Issue 1: Did the Examiner err in finding that the combined teachings
of Rao and Paivike teach and/or suggest estimating one or more parameters
of the impulse noise, wherein the one or more parameters of the impulse
noise comprises a period, an offset, and a duration of the impulse noise, as
set forth in claim 1?
Appellant contends that neither of Rao’s parameters “are derived from
‘a period, an offset, and a duration of the impulse noise’” (App. Br. 10).
Appellant further contends that “nowhere does Rao teach or suggest that the
speech decoder ‘estimate[s]’ any noise parameter yet alone ‘parameters of
the impulse noise’” (id. at 11). Appellant also contends that “[d]etermining
an offset between two communication signals as disclosed by Paivike does
not teach or suggest at least the features of ‘an offset . . . of the impulse
noise’” (id. at 13).
The Examiner finds:
Rao discloses the noise is burst noise . . . . burst noise is impulse noise
. . . . [and] frames k+1, k+2, …, k+N were classified as noisy
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Application 11/377,114

f[r]ames. Therefore, the burst noise duration is N and the burst noise
has a period in each frame period. Because the noisy frames start[] on
k+1, therefore ‘k’ can be interpreted as an offset.
Secondary reference by Paivike further teaches that a time
offset can be calculated from identified frame numbers.
(Ans. 3) (citation omitted). In other words, the Examiner finds that in Rao
the disclosed burst noise is a form of impulse noise, that Rao identifies noisy
frames, that the burst noise duration is N, and that Paivike discloses
calculating an offset. We agree with the Examiner.
Specifically, Rao discloses “a noise parameter generator (40) which
uses a weighted average of auto-correlation values of the input signal
generated during the noise-analysis phase” (Abstract). In Rao, a decoder
“uses a novel weighted-average method for estimating statistics of the
background noise” (3:8–10) and “the first sixteen (16) noisy frames in a
burst of noise are reclassified as ‘noise-analysis’ frames in noise analysis
frames selector 42” (4:4–7). Rao further discloses “computing a weighted
average of said auto-correlation values to represent said noise-analysis
f[r]ames” (6:16–17). Paivike discloses that “[t]he timing offset calculator
produces the timing offset between the current IS-136 frame” (10:3–5). It is
the combined teachings of Rao and Paivike that the Examiner is relying on
to teach and/or suggest the argued limitations.
Appellant’s contentions fail to distinguish Rao’s noise parameter
generator which uses a “weighted average” of the input signal (i.e., burst
noise) from the claimed estimating one or more parameters of the impulse
noise (see Claim 1). A weighted average is by definition an estimated value
(see Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, p.119 (9th Edition 1990))
and Appellant merely defines “impulse noise” as “a corrupting signal”
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Application 11/377,114

(Spec. ¶ 16). As such, we find unavailing Appellant’s contention that the
combined cited art fails to disclose estimating parameters of impulse noise,
i.e., a corrupting signal.
Regarding the type of parameters being estimated, claim 1 merely
requires, inter alia, “one or more parameters . . . comprises a period, an
offset[,] and a duration” (see claim 1). As such, claim 1 reads on estimating
a single parameter, i.e., one or more parameters. Although only a single
parameter is needed, the Examiner finds that Rao discloses a duration N and
a period because Rao “discloses frames k+1, k+2, …, k+N” (see Ans. 3,
citing 5:13–17)(see also Rao 4:4–7), e.g., “the first sixteen (16) noisy frames
in a burst of noise are reclassified as ‘noise-analysis’ frames in noise
analysis frames selector 42,” and that Paivike discloses calculating an offset
(Ans. 3, citing Paivike 9:57–67 and 10:1–10). Appellant fails to both show
how Rao’s first sixteen frames or k+1, … , k+N is not a duration or to
dispute that Paivike discloses calculating an offset parameter (see App. Br.
13).
For at least the reasons noted supra, we are not persuaded the
Examiner erred in finding that the combined cited art discloses the invention
as recited in independent claim 1, in commensurately recited independent
claim 10, and in dependent claims 3–8, 12–17, 19, 22, and 23, not separately
argued. Therefore, the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1, 3–8, 10,
12–17, 19, 22, and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over Rao
and Paivike.

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Claims 20 and 21
Issue 2: Did the Examiner err in finding that the combined cited art,
particularly Rao, teaches and/or suggests predicting a position of a future
frame, as set forth in claim 21?
Appellant contends that “[t]he reconstruction of speech and/or noise
does not teach or suggest ‘predicting a position of future frames affected by
the impulse noise using the one or more parameters of the impulse noise’ as
recited by dependent claim 21” (App. Br. 14). We agree with Appellant.
Although the Examiner finds that Rao discloses using “noise
parameters to synthesize or reconstruct the noise” (Ans. 5, citing Rao 4:43–
55) and “randomly delaying the past noise excitations in each sub-frame”
(id., Rao 5:1–12), the Examiner has not shown how reconstructing the noise
or even exciting an auto-regressive filter with randomly delayed past
excitations teaches predicting a position of future frames, as required by
claim 21.
In view of the above discussion, we are of the opinion that the
proposed combination of references set forth by the Examiner does not
support the obviousness rejection. We, accordingly, do not sustain the
rejection of claim 21, or the rejection of claim 20 for similar reasons.

Claims 9 and 18
Issue 3: Did the Examiner err in finding that the combined cited art,
particularly Rao, teaches and/or suggests determining a single-to-noise ratio,
as set forth in claims 9 and 18?
Appellant contends that “[t]he VAD of Rao distinguishes between
speech and the absence of speech in poor SNR conditions rather than
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‘determining a signal-to-noise ratio based upon the frames that are affected
by the impulse noise’ as recited by dependent claim 9” (App. Br. 16).
The Examiner finds that because Rao considers poor Signal-To-Noise
(SNR) conditions “Rao must measure the signal and the noise to know the
Signal-To-Noise (SNR) conditions” (Ans. 6). We agree with the Examiner.
Rao discloses that “[t]he VAD 22 must be able to detect the absence
of speech in a signal, as much as possible, while not mis-classifying speech
as noise even in poor Signal-To-Noise (SNR) conditions” (1:49–52)(see also
4:1–3). In other words, Rao uses the VAD to classify speech and noise, and
explicitly notes that this has to be done even in poor SNR conditions. We
find that such a disclosure is enough to suggest determining a signal-to-noise
ratio. Therefore, the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 9 and 18 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over the cited art.

DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection of claims 20 and 21.
We affirm the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejections of claims 1, 3–10, 12–
19, 22, and 23.
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-IN-PART
ELD
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