Ex Parte Thomson et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 29, 201613324031 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 29, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/324,031 12/13/2011 5073 7590 BAKER BOTTS LLP, 2001 ROSS A VENUE SUITE 600 DALLAS, TX 75201-2980 07/01/2016 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Allan Thomson 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. 062891.3502 9938 EXAMINER MEHRA, INDER P ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2645 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/01/2016 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): ptomaill@bakerbotts.com ptomail2@bakerbotts.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ALLAN THOMSON, DAVID SHELDON, and JAMES MARTIN POLK Appeal2014-008378 Application 13/324,031 Technology Center 2600 Before: JENNIFER L. McKEOWN, NATHAN A. ENGELS, and NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges. McKEOWN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final decision to reject claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants' invention "relates to wireless networks and, more particularly, to methods, apparatuses, and systems directed to providing location services in a wireless network." Spec. ,-r 2. Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed invention and reads as follows: Appeal2014-008378 Application 13/324,031 1. Logic for providing one or more location services provided by a network infrastructure, the logic encoded in one or more non-transitory computer readable media for execution and when executed operable to: transmit, using a wireless network interface, one or more wireless advertisements to a wireless client station, wherein the one or more wireless advertisements are wireless local area network (WLAN) management frames and identify one or more location services contained in information elements appended to the WLAN management frames that an application hosted on the wireless client station can access to receive a location of the wireless client station, the wireless advertisements operable to provide information relating to the one or more location services accessible to one or more applications hosted on the wireless client station; receive, responsive to a selection of one or more location services by a first application of the one or more applications, a location service request identifying one or more of the selected location services, the selection of the one or more location services facilitated by one or more application programming interfaces; forward the location service request to a location server; and generate path loss measurement parameters (PLM) including a radio transmission schedule including one or more of an interval between bursts, a number of bursts, and one or more radio channels on which to transmit. THE REJECTION The Examiner rejected claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Tsai et al. (US 2005/0078644 Al; pub. Apr. 14, 2005 (Tsai")), Gailey et al. (US 2005/0102180 Al; pub. May 12, 2005 (Gailey)), 2 Appeal2014-008378 Application 13/324,031 and Zeira et al. (US 2009/0221239 Al; pub. Sep. 3, 2009 ("Zeira")). Final Act. 3-11. 1 ANALYSIS Claims 1-20 Based on the record before us, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-20 as unpatentable over Tsai, Gailey, and Zeira. Appellants contend that Tsai fails to teach the recited transmitting limitation of claim 1. In particular, Appellants maintain that Tsai only teaches identifying a Wi-Fi network service, not "location services" that "can [be] access[ ed] to receive a location of the wireless client station." App. Br. 11; see also Reply Br. 2. Further, Appellants assert that nothing in the cited portions of Tsai teaches or suggests any wireless advertisements identifying the recited location services. App. Br. 11-12; see also Reply Br. 2-3. We disagree. Specifically, as the Examiner finds, Tsai teaches techniques and structures "for providing service related information [i.e. wireless advertisements] to wireless users within a wireless network." Tsai, Abstract; see also Tsai i-fi-f l, 24 (noting that Tsai is directed to delivering information about or apprising wireless users of the availability of network services within the network and that this services signal is broadcast to client devices within a coverage region); Final Act. 4; Ans. 2-3. Because Tsai describes transmitting advertisement for services available within a wireless 1 Throughout this opinion, we also refer to (1) the Final Action, mailed March 15, 2013 ("Final Act."); (2) the Appeal Brief filed December 2, 2013 ("App. Br."); (3) the Examiner's Answer mailed May 30, 2014 ("Ans."); and (4) the Reply Brief filed July 30, 2014 ("Reply Br."). 3 Appeal2014-008378 Application 13/324,031 network (see, e.g., Tsai iii! 17, 19, 24) and also expressly discloses that the advertised services may be location based services (Tsai if 10), a skilled artisan would understand location based services to include providing the location of the wireless client station. Final Act. 4--5; Ans. 2-3. Moreover, as the Examiner explains, by Tsai's teaching of location services associated with the location of the wireless user, this facilitates determining the location of the wireless client device. Ans. 3. In other words, a skilled artisan would understand that Tsai's location based services, such as finding the nearest Italian restaurant, would provide not only the location of the of a nearby restaurant but also the location of the wireless client device with respect to the location of the restaurant. As such, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in finding that Tsai teaches transmitting wireless advertisements identifying one or more location services where the wireless client can access the location services to receive a location of the wireless client station. See Ans. 2-3; Final Act. 4--5. Appellants next contend that the proposed combination does not teach or suggest "receiv[ing] ... a location servicer request identifying one or more of the selected location services" that "an application hosted on the wireless client station can access to receive a location of the wireless client station." App. Br. 12 (emphasis omitted); accord Reply Br. 3. According to Appellants, Gailey teaches away from an application that the wireless client can access to receive a location of the wireless client station because Gailey describes transmitting a geographic indicator with the service request. App. Br. 12 (citing Gailey if 35). In other words, the wireless client station has the ability to determine its location itself and would not need to access a service to receive its location. 4 Appeal2014-008378 Application 13/324,031 Notably, Appellants' arguments do not persuasively address the Examiner's finding that Tsai also teaches receiving a location service request identifying one or more of the selected location services. See, e.g., Ans. 4. One cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Moreover, Appellants' arguments with respect to Gailey are unpersuasive. First, cited paragraph 36 additionally describes that the geographic indicator may be "generated by a specialized geographic determination application running." Further, even if Gailey were limited to a present geographic indicator, the mere use of alternative is not sufficient to teach away from the cited combination. See DePuy Spine, Inc. v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Inc., 567 F.3d 1314, 1327 (Fed. Cir. 2009) ("A reference does not teach away [ ... ] if it merely expresses a general preference for an alternative invention[.]"). As such, we agree with the Examiner that the cited combination teaches "receiv[ing]. .. a location servicer request identifying one or more of the selected location services" that "an application hosted on the wireless client station can access to receive a location of the wireless client station," as required by claim 1. Likewise unavailing is Appellants contention that Gailey fails to teach the forwarding limitation. In particular, Appellants assert that Gailey forwards a request to obtain a residential telephone number or address listing, not a location of the wireless client station. Reply Br. 4. Gailey, though, more generally teaches forwarding a request to location server to obtain a particular location. See Gailey i-f 69; Ans. 5. Gailey's teachings 5 Appeal2014-008378 Application 13/324,031 together with Tsai' s teaching of providing location based services to mobile users at least suggest the recited forwarding the location service request to a location server. Finally, Appellants contend that Zeira fails to teach generating path loss measurement parameters as recited because Zeira' s PLM parameters do not include a radio transmission schedule. App. Br. 14; see also Reply Br. 5. We disagree. As the Examiner finds, "Zeira discloses, path loss estimation (measurement of transmission channel on certain periods during bursts (Interpretation: certain periods is same as one or more of intervals between bursts which is, therefore, interpreted as schedule.)." Ans. 6 (citing Zeira i-fi-1 16-18, 28 and 30). As such, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in finding that Zeira teaches this limitation. Accordingly, for the reasons discussed above and by the Examiner, claim 1 as well as claims 2-20, not argued with particularity, are unpatentable over the combination of Tsai, Gailey, and Zeira. CONCLUSION The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1-20 under§ 103. DECISION We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-20. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation