Ex Parte Suh et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 19, 2018

14961602 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 19, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/961,602 12/07/2015
74365 7590 09/21/2018
Slater Matsil, LLP/HW/FW/HWC
17950 Preston Road, Suite 1000
Dallas, TX 75252
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Jung Hoon Suh
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.
HW 81080927US06 1386
EXAMINER
KANG, SUK JIN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2477
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/21/2018 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):
uspatent@huawei.com
docketing@slatermatsil.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JUNG HOON SUH, OSAMA ABOUL-MAGD,
KWOK SHUM AU, and SHENG SUN
Appeal2018---001575
Application 14/961,602
Technology Center 2400
Before JAMES R. HUGHES, ERIC S. FRAHM, and
MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges.
FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2018---001575
Application 14/961,602
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of
claims 1-5, 7-20, and 22-27. 2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
Exemplary Claim
Appellants' disclosed invention relates to "interference alignment in a
wireless local area network (LAN) with an overlapping basic service set
(OBSS)." Spec. ,r 5. In particular, in an interference alignment mode, the
access points (APs) in the OBSS network alternately broadcast a null data
packet (NDP) sounding packet for channel feedback. Spec. ,r 21. Each
station (STA) in the network receiving the NDP sounding packet performs
channel estimation and sends signal plus interference to noise ratio (SINR)
information to the broadcasting AP. See Spec. ,r,r 21-22. The information
from the STAs is then used for creating beamforming matrices for the APs.
See Spec. i-f23. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed
subject matter:
1. A method in a wireless local area network (LAN) for
interference alignment, the wireless LAN having a plurality of
access points (APs), the method comprising:
instructing a first one of the plurality of access points
(APs), the first AP having a plurality of antennae and a
transmission stream per 2 antennae, to broadcast a null data
packet (NDP) sounding packet to a plurality of stations when
no other AP in the plurality of APs is broadcasting, wherein the
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Huawei Technologies
Co., Ltd. Br. 2.
2 The Examiner has indicated that claims 6 and 21 contain allowable subject
matter (Final Act. 10), and thus claims 6 and 21 are not before us on appeal.
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Appeal2018---001575
Application 14/961,602
NDP sounding packet comprises a plurality of long training
fields (L TFs ), and wherein a total number of L TFs for the NDP
sounding packet is equal to a total number of transmission
streams per AP;
receiving channel beamforming (BF) information and a
signal plus interference to noise ratio (SINR) from each of the
plurality of stations, wherein each of the plurality of stations
computes the channel BF information and the SINR from at
least the NDP sounding packet; and
determining a transmission schedule according to the
SINRs and the channel BF information.
The Examiner's Rejections
Claims 1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 14, 16-19, 22, and 24--27 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Liu (US 2013/0107916 Al;
May 2, 2013) and Zhang (US 2015/0172026 Al; Jun. 18, 2015).
Claims 2, 5, 15, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
being unpatentable over Liu, Zhang, and Cho (US 2008/0025336 Al; Jan.
31, 2008).
Claims 8, 11-13, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
being unpatentable over Liu, Zhang, and Shapira (US 2011/0273977 Al;
Nov. 10, 2011).
ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds the combination of Liu and Zhang discloses all
the limitations of claim 1, including that Liu teaches "the first AP having a
plurality of antennae and a transmission stream per 2 antennae." Final Act.
3--4. Appellants argue Liu teaches an AP transmitting a single transmission
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Application 14/961,602
stream per antenna, rather than a transmission stream per two antennas, as
claimed. Br. 5-6. We are persuaded by Appellants' argument.
We begin by construing the claim language "a transmission stream per
2 antennae." The plain language of the claim establishes a relationship
between the number of transmission streams and the number of antennas.
Accordingly, the language "a transmission stream" should not be read as
broadly as possible, i.e., as meaning one or more transmission streams.
Rather, "a transmission stream," when juxtaposed with the language "per 2
antennae," implies the number of transmission streams is important, and
should be limited to one per two antennas. Further, in the Specification, the
invention is described in terms of a 1 :2 ratio between transmission streams
and antennas when transmitting NDP sounding packets: "The N_STS
[ number of streams] should be one half of N_TX [ number of transmitting
antennas], for example, when N_STS is 2, the N_TX is 4 in the case of a two
AP collaboration situation." Spec. ,r 42. Accordingly, when read in light of
the Specification, claim 1 requires a ratio of one transmission stream per two
antennas.
Liu teaches a multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) wireless
system with inter-user interference indication feedback. Liu ,r,r 20-21.
However, in the example relied upon by the Examiner (see Ans. 11-12), Liu
teaches "four spatial streams are transmitted by the TX antennas with two
spatial streams intended for each receiver," where the single AP in Liu's
system has four antennas in total. Liu, ,r 28; Fig. 2. Accordingly, Liu
teaches a ratio of one transmission stream per one antenna, in contrast to the
claimed one transmission stream per two antennas.
We are, therefore, constrained by the record to find the Examiner
erred in rejecting independent claim 1, independent claim 14 which recites
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Application 14/961,602
commensurate limitations, and dependent claims 2-5, 7-13, 15-20, and 22-
2 7 for similar reasons.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-5, 7-20, and 22-27 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-5, 7-20, and
22-27.
REVERSED
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