Ex Parte Shetty et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJul 29, 201613447926 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 29, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/447,926 04/16/2012 28005 7590 08/02/2016 SPRINT 6391 SPRINT PARKWAY KSOPHT0101-Z2100 OVERLAND PARK, KS 66251-2100 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Manoj Shetty 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. 4677a 1189 EXAMINER CASCA, FRED A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2644 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/02/2016 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): 6450patdocs@sprint.com steven.j.funk@sprint.com docketing@mbhb.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MANOI SHETTY, SACHIN R. V ARGANTW AR, SIDDHARTH S. OROSKAR, ASHVINI G. CANJEEVARAM, and DEVESHKUMAR RAI Appeal2015-000323 Application 13/447,926 1 Technology Center 2600 Before JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, SHARON PENICK, and JOHN R. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judges. PENICK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-8 and 11-20. Claims 9 and 10 are objected to as depending from a rejected base claim but indicated as allowable. (Appeal Br. l; Final Action 15.) We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b)(l). We affirm. 1 Appellants identify Sprint Spectrum L.P. as the real party in interest. (Appeal Br. 1.) Appeal2015-000323 Application 13/447 ,926 Invention Appellants' invention relates to management of wireless communications, and specifically to scanning sectors. A mobile station will scan for sectors in its "remaining" set. The sectors in this set are sorted by distance from the mobile device, and the remaining set scan occurs in the sorted order. (Spec. Abstract, 2:6-7, 6:3-19, 7:2-21.) Representative Claim Claim l is representative: 1. In a mobile station, a method comprising: storing in data storage of the mobile station a list of wireless coverage sectors and their respective locations; determining a geographic location of the mobile station; sorting wireless coverage sectors of the list in order of distance between their locations and the determined mobile station location, so as to produce a sorted list of wireless coverage sectors; and scanning for pilot signals from the wireless coverage sectors of the sorted list, in the order sorted. Rejections The Examiner rejects claims 1, 5-8, 17, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Corbett et al. (US 6,351,642 Bl; Feb. 26, 2002), Kim (US 2008/0039082 Al; Feb. 14, 2008), and Jovanovic (US 2008/0160998 Al; July 3, 2008). (Final Action 2-7.) The Examiner rejects claims 2--4 and 11-16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Corbett, Kim, Jovanovic, and Applicant's Admitted Prior Art. (Final Action 7-11.) 2 Appeal2015-000323 Application 13/447 ,926 The Examiner rejects claim 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Corbett, Kim, Jovanovic, and Hunzinger (US 2002/0142772 Al; Oct. 3, 2002.) (Final Action 11-14.) The Examiner rejects claim 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Corbett, Kim, Jovanovic, Hunzinger, and Borislow (US 2007/0189271 Al; Aug. 16, 2007.) (Final Action 14--15.) Issue Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Corbett, Kim, and Jovanovic teaches or suggests "sorting wireless coverage sectors of the list in order of distance between their locations and the determined mobile station location" and "scanning for pilot signals from the wireless coverage sectors of the sorted list, in the order sorted," as recited in claim 1? ANALYSIS We have considered Appellants' arguments as presented in the Appeal Brief, pages 3-10, and the Reply Brief, pages 3-10. We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants' arguments. We are unpersuaded by Appellants' contentions. Except as indicated otherwise, we adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the rejections from which appeal is taken and in the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants' Appeal Brief. See Final Act. 2-20; Ans. 3-20. However, we highlight and address specific arguments and findings for emphasis as follows. Corbett and Kim Corbett relates to handoff in a CDMA system in which a list of neighbor cells is stored in a mobile station. (Corbett Abstract; 5: 13-30.) 3 Appeal2015-000323 Application 13/447 ,926 The Examiner finds that Corbett teaches or suggests the subject matter of claim 1, excepting that: "Corbett does not explicitly disclose sorting wireless coverage cells/sectors of the list, ... and Corbett does not specifically disclose the scanning is the scanning of [a] sorted list in the order listed." (Final Action 2-3.) Kim relates to cell selection in a network, which uses intensity of signals from the cells and determines whether cells are selectable as target cells. (Kim Abstract; i-f 13.) The Examiner finds that, "Kim discloses sorting wireless coverage cells/sectors of the list, so as to produce a sorted list ... and Kim further discloses the scanning is the scanning of [a] sorted list in the order listed." (Final Action 3.) Appellants argue that the Examiner erred by overstating the teachings of the Corbett and Kim combination. (Appeal Br. 4--5; Reply Br. 4--5.) Thus, the Appellants argue that the rejection is flawed because, "the combination of Corbett/Kim still fails to suggest in a mobile station, scanning sectors in sorted order of distance between their locations and the mobile station location." (Reply Br. 5.) However, the Examiner does not indicate that the combination of Corbett and Kim suggests scanning by sorted order of distance, but rather that the combination teaches or suggests the sorting of sectors into a sorted list and the scanning of the sorted list. (Final Action 3; Answer 5.) We do not find in Appellants' arguments regarding the Examiner's findings regarding Corbett and Kim a basis to overturn the rejection because, as discussed below, the Examiner relies on the full combination of references, including Jovanovic, for teaching or suggesting the disputed limitation. 4 Appeal2015-000323 Application 13/447 ,926 Corbett, Kim, and Jovanovic Jovanovic relates to identification of handoff candidates for a mobile station in a CDMA system. (Jovanovic Abstract, i-fi-f l-2.) The Examiner finds that Jovanovic's disclosure, including in Figure 6, of the calculation of the distance of each identified sectors to the mobile station and use of that information to find the closest sector teaches or suggests to one of ordinary skill using the distance of each sector relative to the mobile station as the sort order of the combination of Corbett and Kim. (Final Action 3--4, 16-19; Answer 11-12, 19-20.) Appellants argue that Figure 6 does not disclose a sorted list of sectors in order of distance from the mobile station, but is rather "a patent draftsperson's illustration" and that the ordering of the sectors in Figure 6 is happenstance. (Appeal Br. 5---6.) Appellants further argue that in Jovanovic, "it is perfectly possible that the network according to Jovanovic could simply select the sector that has the lowest indicated distance ... without engaging in any sorting of the sectors whatsoever." (Reply Br. 7.) Whether Jovanovic explicitly discloses sorting, however, we find that the combination of Corbett and Kim teach sorting of sectors and scanning in the sorted order, and agree with the Examiner that "[t]he important point of Jovanovic is determining handoff candidate based on the distance of sector closest to the mobile station." (Answer 19.) Appellants further argue that "the Examiner did not give sufficient weight to the invention of claim 1 as a whole" (Appeal Br. 4) and that insufficient weight was given to "the fact that the claimed invention integrally involves scanning for pilot signals from the wireless coverage sectors in the sorted order of distance of the wireless coverage sectors from 5 Appeal2015-000323 Application 13/447 ,926 the geographic location of the mobile station." (Id. at 5.) We evaluate whether the claim as a whole would have been obvious to an ordinarily- skilled artisan in light of the proffered combination of the prior art, accounting for "the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ." KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007)(noting also that, "[ c ]ommon sense teaches, however, that familiar items may have obvious uses beyond their primary purposes, and in many cases a person of ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle." (Id. at 420.)) Appellants correctly note that an obviousness rejection cannot be supported by a mere demonstration that each of the limitations was known independently in the art. (Appeal Br. 3--4, citing KSR 550 U.S. at 398.) However, the Examiner has provided a discussion of motivations to combine the prior art (Final Action 3-4, Ans. 3-5) and Appellants have not rebutted these motivations. Appellants further have not presented evidence sufficient to show that combining the prior art was "uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art" or "represented an unobvious step over the prior art." Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418-19). Nor have Appellants presented evidence that any of incorporations of known limitations yielded more than expected results. Thus, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding that the prior art combination teaches or suggests the disputed limitation. 6 Appeal2015-000323 Application 13/447 ,926 Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Corbett, Kim, and Jovanovic teaches or suggests the limitations as recited in independent claim 1 and commensurately recited in independent claim 6. Claims 2-5, 7-8, and 11-18 were not separately argued and thus, these claims fall with their respective independent claims. We additionally find no error in the rejections of claims 19 and 20, rejected over the combination of Corbett, Kim, Jovanovic, and Hunzinger and argued on the same grounds. Therefore, we sustain the rejections of claims 1-8 and 11-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for obviousness. DECISION We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-8 and 11-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv), no time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended. AFFIRMED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation