Ex Parte Trutna et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

May 24, 2011

10733675 (B.P.A.I. May. 24, 2011)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte WILLIAM R. TRUTNA JR. and KENNETH R. WILDNAUER
____________________

Appeal 2009-013426
Application 10/733,675
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, THOMAS S. HAHN, and ERIC S.
FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges.

FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF CASE
Introduction
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1-6 and 11-19. Claims 7-10 and 20-25 stand withdrawn due to the
restriction requirement mailed January 26, 2007, and Appellants’ response
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thereto filed February 26, 2007. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).

Exemplary Claim
Exemplary claim 1 under appeal reads as follows:
1. A wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) method for
transmitting information signals via multiple transmission channels, the
method comprising:
encoding each information signal with a respective spreading code to
generate a coded signal corresponding to each bit of the spreading code, the
spreading codes being mutually different;
allocating the coded signals corresponding to the same bit of the
spreading codes to a respective one of the transmission channels; and
in each of the transmission channels:
analog summing the coded signals allocated thereto to generate a
modulation signal, and
generating an optical transmission signal in response to the
modulation signal.

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Rejections on Appeal 1
The Examiner rejected claims 1 and 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Sudo (US 6,839,335 B1), Dent
(US 6,680,928 B1), and Hoang (US 2004/0246973 A1).
The Examiner rejected claim 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Sudo, Dent, Hoang, and Shattil
(US 2002/0150070 A1).
The Examiner rejected claims 4 and 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Sudo, Dent, Hoang, and van der
Gracht (US 4,835,517).
The Examiner rejected claim 6 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Sudo, Dent, Hoang, and Balachandran
(US 7,187,715 B2).
The Examiner rejected claims 11 and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Sudo, Dent, and Byung-gu Ahn
and Youngil Park, A Symmetric-Structure CDMA-PON System and Its

1 Separate patentability is not argued for claims 3-6 and 11-19 (see Br. 13-
20). “A statement which merely points out what a claim recites will not be
considered an argument for separate patentability of the claim.”
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (last sentence). Further, merely restating with
respect to a second claim an argument, previously presented with respect to
a first claim, is not an argument for separate patentability of the two claims.
For the foregoing reasons, and because Appellants only present arguments
relating to the merits of Sudo and Dent (see Br. 6-13), our analysis will
specifically address the § 103 rejection over Sudo and Dent as applied to
claims 1 and 2.
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Implementation, IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, Vol. 14, No. 9,
1381-83 (September 2002) (hereinafter, “Ahn”).
The Examiner rejected claim 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Sudo, Dent, Ahn, and Shattil.
The Examiner rejected claims 14-16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Sudo, Dent, Ahn, and Way (US
2002/0021464 A1).
The Examiner rejected claims 17 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Sudo, Dent, Ahn, and van der
Gracht.
The Examiner rejected claim 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Sudo, Dent, Ahn, and Balachandran.
Appellants’ Contentions
Appellants contend (Br. 6-13) that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claims 1 and 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (see supra first rejection) for
numerous reasons including: (1) Sudo fails to allocate spread-spectrum
encoded transmission signals in the same manner as recited in claim 1,
because Sudo has intermediate processing steps between the encoding and
allocating steps, and these additional intermediate processing steps transform
the encoded signals such that a different signal is being allocated in Sudo
than in claim 1 (Br. 8-11); (2) Sudo fails to disclose or suggest allocating
coded signals generated by the encoding step directly, without additional
processing, to respective transmission channels (Br. 11); (3) Sudo’s
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allocation section performs IFFT processing, and this is different than
Appellants’ invention that does not perform such processing (Br. 11-12); (4)
Sudo fails to directly allocate encoded signals to the analog summer, in
contrast with Appellants’ Figure 2 which allocates at circuit 25 and then is
input directly to analog summers without additional processing (Br. 11-12);
and (5) and Dent’s combiner 24 (Fig. 1) and combiner 58 (Fig. 2) serve to
combine the entire spread-spectrum coded signal to generate a single
composite modulation signal, and thus there is no suggestion in Dent to sum
the same bits of each of plural spreading code signals (Br. 12-13).

Issues on Appeal
Does a proper interpretation of the language recited in independent
claim 1 require that signal allocation of the encoded signals occur directly
after encoding, and without any additional or intermediary processing before
being allocated to respective transmission channels and summed?
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1 and 2 as being obvious
because Sudo and Dent fail to teach or suggest claim limitations at issue?

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments in the Appeal Brief that the Examiner has erred.
We disagree with Appellants’ conclusions. We adopt as our own
(1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from
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which this appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in
the Examiner’s Answer (Ans. 4-18) in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief.
We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner.
We agree with the Examiner (see Ans. 14-16) that the language of
independent claim 1 does not require that signal allocation of the encoded
signals occur directly after encoding (i.e., without any additional or
intermediary processing before being allocated to respective transmission
channels and summed). Accordingly, the Examiner is correct (Ans. 15-16)
that the language of claim 1, including the use of the term “comprising” as
opposed to “consisting of,” encompasses Sudo’s additional processing (e.g.,
performed by addition section 2 and S/P converter 3). The same holds true
for independent claim 11.
As to Appellants’ argument (Br. 12-13) that Dent’s combiner 24 (Fig.
1) and combiner 58 (Fig. 2) serve to combine the entire spread-spectrum
coded signal to generate a single composite modulation signal, and thus
there is no suggestion to sum the same bits of each of plural spreading code
signals, we disagree because the Examiner merely cites Dent for a teaching
that bits are allocated to a transmission channel by being summed prior to
transmission (see Ans. 4-5 and 17-18).

CONCLUSIONS
(1) The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 1-6 and 11-19 as
being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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(2) On this record, claims 1-6 and 11-19 are not patentable.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-6 and 11-19 are affirmed.
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

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