11407801 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 24, 2014)

Ex Parte Vogety et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 24, 2014

11407801 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 24, 2014)

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. 11/407,801 04/20/2006 Ramanagopal V. Vogety Tropos - 1031 8687 7590 09/24/2014 Tropos Patent Dept PO Box 641867 San Jose, CA 95164-1867 EXAMINER PEREZ GUTIERREZ, RAFAEL ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2642 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/24/2014 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 RAMANAGOPAL V. VOGETY, CYRUS BEHROOZI, and AMALAVOYAL CHARI ____________________ Appeal 2012-008269 Application 11/407,801 Technology Center 2600 ____________________ Before: JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2012-008269 Application 11/407,801 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1– 24. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. The claims are directed to mobile access node channel selection within a mesh network. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method of a mobile node transmission channel selection, comprising: the mobile node detecting a quality of previously selected routing path over a previously selected transmission channel; if the quality of the routing path is below a predetermined threshold, then the mobile node transmitting probe requests on each of a plurality of available transmission channels; collecting responses to the probe request from at least one upstream access nodes over at least one of the available transmission channels; selecting a new transmission channel based upon the responses received over the available transmission channels. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Moon US 6,804,532 B1 Oct. 12, 2004 Cain Joshi Srikrishna Brahmbhatt US 2004/0029553 A1 US 2004/0252643 A1 US 2005/0036487 A1 US 2006/0116170 A1 Feb. 12, 2004 Dec. 16, 2004 Feb. 17, 2005 June 1, 2006 Appeal 2012-008269 Application 11/407,801 3 Swanson US 2006/0217166 A1 Sept. 28, 2006 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1–5, 7–10, 13, 14, and 16–23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Srikrishna, Moon, and Cain. Claim 6 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Srikrishna, Moon, Cain, and Joshi. Claims 11 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Srikrishna, Moon, Cain, and Brahmbhatt. Claims 15 and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Srikrishna, Moon, Cain, and Swanson. ANALYSIS Appellants contend the cited references fail to teach or suggest: (1) “if the quality of the routing path is below a predetermined threshold, then the mobile node transmitting probe requests on each of a plurality of available transmission channels” (Br. 9); (2) “collecting responses to the probe request from at least one upstream access nodes over at least one of the available transmission channels” (id.); and (3) “selecting a new transmission channel based upon the responses received over the available transmission channels” (Br. 10). We disagree with Appellants for the reasons explained below with respect to independent claim 1, which we treat as representative of the claims on appeal. Regarding Appellants’ first contention, the Examiner relies on Moon for disclosing determining that the quality of a routing path is below a Appeal 2012-008269 Application 11/407,801 4 predetermined quality threshold (Ans. 6), and relies on Cain for disclosing a mobile node transmitting probe requests over multiple transmission channels (Ans. 6–7). Moon discloses the following: Router 130 [in mobile station 20] determines at step 182 whether the link quality of the primary communication link is below the high link quality threshold. If the link quality is above the high link quality threshold, then method returns to step 180. If the link quality is below the high link quality threshold, router 130 establishes (or initiates the establishment of) one or more alternative communication links at step 184. (Moon, col. 13, ll. 34–40). Appellants’ argument that “router 130 determines whether the link . . . is below a high quality link threshold” and thus “does not teach or suggest doing anything upon a quality of a routing path falling below a predetermined threshold” (Br. 9) is not persuasive. Moon discloses that a link is part of a path, and that a change of one link in the path creates a different path (see Moon, col. 13, ll. 40–57). Accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would have understood that Moon’s determining that a link is below the high quality link threshold amounts to determining that the path that includes the link is below the high quality threshold (see id.). Thus, we agree with the Examiner (Ans. 6) and find that Moon discloses determining “if the quality of the routing path is below a predetermined threshold,” as recited in claim 1. Cain discloses the following: The network 20 includes a plurality of mobile nodes 30 including the source node 1 and the destination node 4 with intermediate nodes 2, 3 and 5 therebetween. The nodes 30, such as laptop computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) or mobile phones, are connected by wireless communication links 32 as would be appreciated by the skilled artisan. The method begins (block 100) and includes transmitting a route request Appeal 2012-008269 Application 11/407,801 5 RREQ from the source node 1 to discover routing to destination node 4, as indicated at block 102 in FIG. 5. More specifically, when a new route is needed to a given destination node 4, the source node 1 broadcasts the RREQ packet to the destination node. . . . Furthermore, at block 104, the method includes each intermediate node 2, 3 and 5 determining whether the node can support the route request RREQ. . . . The destination node 4, upon receiving the route request RREQ, generates a reply RREP to the source node 1 for each discovered route (block 110). In other words, the destination node 4 may have received the forwarded route request RREQ from any of various possible routes including, for example, 1-2- 4 or 1-3-5-4. A reply RREP is generated in each case. At block 112, the source node 1 ranks the discovered routes according to one or more link metrics. The link metric is preferably a measurement of link delay, link capacity, link available capacity, and/or link reliability as will be discussed below. (Cain, ¶¶ 27–29). Appellants’ argument that Cain’s routing requests are not “probe requests,” as recited in claim 1 (Br. 9), is not persuasive. Appellants do not explain why Cain’s routing requests are not probe requests, and we are thus not persuaded Cain fails to disclose this feature. Rather, because Cain’s routing requests seek to discover new routes between a source and destination (see Cain, ¶¶ 27–29), we find these routing requests to be “probe requests” as claimed. With respect to Appellants’ argument that Cain does not disclose transmitting the routing requests over a “plurality of available transmission channels,” as also recited in claim 1 (Br. 9), we agree with the Examiner’s broad, but reasonable interpretation of the claimed “transmission channels” as including any mediums for transmission of data between a Appeal 2012-008269 Application 11/407,801 6 source and destination, such as communication paths and communication links (Ans. 20). Based on this construction, we agree with the Examiner and find Cain meets the limitation “the mobile node transmitting probe requests on each of a plurality of available transmission channels,” as recited in claim 1, because as quoted above, Cain discloses a mobile node sending routing requests, i.e., “probe requests,” over different communication routes, i.e., “transmission channels” (see Cain, ¶¶ 27–29). Appellants have not filed a Reply Brief, and thus waive any arguments against the Examiner’s finding that Cain’s multiple routes between a source and destination node are “transmission channels” based on the reasonable claim interpretation in the Examiner’s response. See Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473, 1474 (BPAI 2010) (“Informative”) (“[A]rguments that could be made in the reply brief, but are not, are waived.”). Regarding Appellants’ second and third contentions, we agree with the Examiner and find that Cain also discloses the features disputed in these contentions based on the above construction of “transmission channels.” Specifically, Cain meets the limitation “collecting responses to the probe request from at least one upstream access nodes over at least one of the available transmission channels,” as recited in claim 1 (Ans. 7), because, as quoted above, Cain’s mobile node receives replies over the multiple communication routes and ranks the discovered routes according to link metrics (Cain, ¶ 29). Cain also meets the limitation “selecting a new transmission channel based upon the responses received over the available transmission channels,” as recited in claim 1 (Ans. 7), because Cain discloses “the source node may transmit route confirmations CONF to Appeal 2012-008269 Application 11/407,801 7 intermediate nodes on the selected route” (Cain, ¶ 31). As additional support for this limitation, Moon discloses “router 130 [in mobile station 20] selects one or more of the alternative communication links to become the primary communication link (and the communication path of which the alternate link is a part to become the primary communication path)” (Moon, col. 14, ll. 13–17). Further, as noted above, Appellants waived any argument against the Examiner’s findings that Cain discloses these features based on the construction of “transmission channels,” discussed above. We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1, and claims 2–15 not specifically argued separately. Although Appellants present separate arguments for claims 16–24, the arguments presented are similar to those discussed above regarding claim 1 (see Br. 11– 12). We are therefore also not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 16–24. CONCLUSION The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1–24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–24 is 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). Appeal 2012-008269 Application 11/407,801 8 AFFIRMED msc