Ex Parte Wirola et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 27, 2017

13582981 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 27, 2017)

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.
13/582,981 09/05/2012 Lauri Wirola NC71661US 5642
12358 7590 09/29/2017
Mint7 T evin/Nnkia Teohnnlnaies; Ov EXAMINER
One Financial Center
Boston, MA 02111
ELHAG, MAGDI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2641
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/29/2017 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):
IPDocketingBOS @mintz.com
IPFileroomBOS@mintz.com
Nokia. IPR @ nokia. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte LAURI WIROLA and TOMMILAINE1
Appeal 2017-005115
Application 13/582,981
Technology Center 2600
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, JEREMY J. CURCURI, and
IRVIN E. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judges.
BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims
30, 32—36, 38, 39, 41—44, 46, 48, and 50-59, which are all the pending
claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 The real party in interest is Nokia Corporation. App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2017-005115
Application 13/582,981
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to exchanging messages relating to
positioning data with a mobile device. Spec. 1:6—8; Abstract.
Claim 30, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
30. A method comprising:
generating, by a user equipment, a request for positioning
data and including in the request an indication that an estimate of
an amount of the requested positioning data is to be provided
before the requested positioning data is to be provided, wherein
the requested positioning data includes information to enable a
determination of a location of the user equipment;
causing, by the user equipment, a transmission of the
request; and
receiving, by the user equipment, an initial response
before receiving the requested positioning data, the initial
response including the estimate of the amount of the requested
positioning data, wherein the estimate represents a data payload
size and/or a quantity of objects.
REFERENCES
Beesley
Edge
Willuns
US 2003/0093520 A1 May 15, 2003
US 2008/0228654 A1 Sept. 18, 2008
WO 2009/004398 A1 Jan. 8, 2009
REJECTION
Claims 30, 32—36, 38, 39, 41—44, 46, 48, and 50—59 stand rejected
under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of
Edge, Beesley, and Willuns. Non-Final Act. 5—25.
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Application 13/582,981
OPINION
Appellants allege error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 30
because “a request for positioning data [that includes] an indication that an
estimate of an amount of the requested positioning data is to be provided
before the requested positioning data is to be provided” is not rendered
obvious by the combination of references. App. Br. 16—22; Reply Br. 5—12.
The Examiner’s rejection relies primarily on Edge for a mobile device
requesting positioning data. Non-Final Act. 5 (citing Edge ^fl[ 86, 88). The
Examiner acknowledges that Edge does not disclose “an indication that an
estimate of an amount of the requested positioning data is to be provided
before the requested positioning data is to be provided.” Id. 6. The
Examiner finds “requesting for an estimate of the data size before actually
downloading the requested data is obvious because it is known in the art of
data downloading.” Id. 6—7 (citing Beesley Fig. 6 and ^fl[ 6, 36—38, and 66—
67). The Examiner finds
one of ordinary skill[] in the art at the time the invention was
made [would have been] motivated to modify Edge by including
provisions in the mobile device, e.g. client proxy, and in the
associated location server to enable the mobile device to request
and receive size of the requested positioning data before
downloading the requested data, as taught by Beesley, so as to
enable the user to avoid large costs incurred with downloading
data of unknown size via a wireless communication network as
suggested by Beesley.
Id. 7 (citing Edge ^fl[ 86—93 and Beesley ^fl[ 1—4).
Appellants’ arguments (App. Br. 16—21) do not persuade us of error in
the Examiner’s rejection of claim 30 for the reasons stated by the Examiner
(Ans. 2—8), which Appellants do not persuasively rebut (see generally Reply
Br. 5—12). We adopt the Examiner’s findings and conclusion that claim 30
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Application 13/582,981
is unpatentable over the combination of Edge, Beesley, and Willuns (Ans.
2—8) and the Examiner’s response (Ans. 2—8) to Appellants’ arguments
(App. Br. 16—21). We highlight the following for emphasis.
Appellants’ argument that “[njowhere does Beesley describe or
suggest an ability to provide an estimate for an amount of positioning data
requested by a user equipment” (Reply Br. 5—6) is unpersuasive of error
because the Examiner did not rely on Beesley for “positioning data.” Non-
Final Act. 5. Appellants acknowledge that Edge discloses positioning data
(Reply Br. 2 (“Edge only provides a general description of positioning data
(e.g., GPS assistance data)”) and that Beesley discloses getting an estimate
of an amount of data before the data is sent {id. 5 (“Beesley, at best, merely
discloses providing an estimate of an amount of webpage data to be
transferred from a web server to a client terminal”). Appellants do not
persuasively rebut the Examiner’s finding that the combination of Edge and
Beesley discloses “a request for positioning data [that includes] an indication
that an estimate of an amount of the requested positioning data is to be
provided before the requested positioning data is to be provided.” Ans. 5.
Appellants’ argument that the Examiner erred in finding ‘“Edge is
concerned with downloading large amounts of positioning data’” because
“Edge is thoroughly agnostic to the amount of positioning data being
downloaded from a location service to a client terminal” (Reply Br. 7) is
unpersuasive because it misrepresents the Examiner’s position. We
understand the Examiner to use “concerned” {see, e.g., Ans. 4 (“Edge is also
concerned with user downloading large amounts of positioning assistance
data/information, e.g. detailed information of all base stations in a
geographic region”)) to express that Edge deals with large amounts of data,
which Edge clearly describes {see, e.g., 1 86). Whether Edge is “agnostic”
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Application 13/582,981
to the amount does not negate that the subject matter of Edge concerns large
amounts of data, as the Examiner finds. Non-Final Act. 7; Ans. 4.
Accordingly Appellants’ argument that “a person having ordinary skill in the
art would have no motivation to modify Edge with Beeslev” (Reply Br. 7) is
unpersuasive.
We also are unpersuaded of error by Appellants’ arguments that
Beesley and Edge are non-analogous art and combining them would result in
an inoperative system. Reply Br. 7—8. Appellants do not persuasively rebut
the Examiner’s response (Ans. 3—9) to Appellants’ arguments as presented
in the Appeal Brief (see App. Br. 19-20; see also Ans. 3 (“Beesly is an
analogous art and is in the same field of endeavor of communications
between a user terminal and a server and particularly
transferring/downloading data from the server to a user terminal” (citing
Beesly 111^1))).
Appellants have not convinced us the Examiner’s reasoning does not
amount to the requisite ‘“some articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness. ’” KSR Int 7
Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007) (quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d
977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)). See Non-Final Act. 7 (“to enable the user to
avoid large costs incurred with downloading data of unknown size via a
wireless communication network”).
In view of the foregoing, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim
30. Because Appellants argue all pending claims collectively, based on
arguments presented with respect to claim 30, we also sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 32—36, 38, 39, 41—44, 46, 48, and 50—59.
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DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 30, 32—36, 38, 39,
41—44, 46,48, and 50-59.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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