Ex Parte Zhang et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 22, 201814234523 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 22, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/234,523 01/23/2014 48116 7590 FAY SHARPE/NOKIA 1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor The Halle Building Cleveland, OH 44115-1843 08/24/2018 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Xiaobo Zhang 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. LUTZ 201767US01 1297 EXAMINER PATEL, HARDIKKUMAR D ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2473 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/24/2018 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): docketing@faysharpe.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 XIAO BO ZHANG and FANG-CHEN CHENG 1 Appeal2017-009350 Application 14/234,523 Technology Center 2400 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges. THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1--4, 6-8, and 10-15, all the pending claims in the present application. Claims 5 and 9 are canceled (see Claims Appendix). We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. The present invention relates generally to a pre-coded physical downlink control channel reference signal and blind decoding (see Spec., Abstract). 1 Appellants name Alcatel Lucent as the real party in interest (App. Br. 1 ). Appeal2017-009350 Application 14/234,523 Claims 1 and 3 are illustrative: 1. A method of transmitting a demodulation reference signal in a base station of a wireless communication network, the demodulation reference signal being used for demodulating physical downlink control channel signaling, wherein the physical downlink control channel signaling is embedded in a physical downlink shared channel, and the method comprises: - transmitting the demodulation reference signal to a user equipment, wherein the demodulation reference signal is included in at least one of a plurality of control channel elements, wherein each control channel element includes a separate demodulation reference signal. 3. A method, in a base station of a wireless communication network, of assisting a user equipment in blind decoding, wherein the method comprises: - providing the user equipment with blind decoding indication information, the blind decoding indication information including an indication of a search space in which the user equipment performs the blind decoding, wherein the search space comprises a control channel element of a traditional physical downlink control channel and further comprises a control channel element of a pre-coded physical downlink control channel, wherein the blind decoding indication information further comprises an indication of the numbers of searches respectively in the search space of the traditional physical downlink control channel and the search space of the pre-coded physical downlink control channel. Appellants appeal the following rejections: RI. Claims 1, 2, 4, 10, 12, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Lee (US 2001/0085506 Al, Apr. 14, 2011) and Feng (US 2013/0223402 Al, Aug. 29, 2013); R2. Claims 3, 7, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Lee and Qu (US 2012/0250642 Al, Oct. 4, 2012); and 2 Appeal2017-009350 Application 14/234,523 R3. Claims 6, 8, 11, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Lee, Qu, and Sartori (US 2012/0250641 Al, Oct. 4, 2012). We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellants, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). ANALYSIS Rejection under§ 103(a) Claims 1, 2, 12, and 13 Issue 1: Did the Examiner err in finding that Lee and Feng collectively teach or suggest "the demodulation reference signal is included in at least one of a plurality of control channel elements," as set forth in claim 1? Appellants contend that "there is no specific discussion in Lee of the demodulation reference signal being included in at least one of a plurality of control channel elements" (App. Br. 10) and "Feng does not add anything that would remedy the aforementioned deficiency in Lee" (id.) because "Feng only discloses that the sub-control elements include a resource element that can be used for sending a demodulation reference signal" (id. at 10-11). The Examiner finds that "Lee does disclose [] transmitting the demodulation reference signal to a user equipment, wherein the demodulation reference signal is included in at least one of a plurality of control channel elements" (Ans. 8-9) and "Feng does disclose each control 3 Appeal2017-009350 Application 14/234,523 channel element including a separate modulation reference signal" (id. at 9). We agree with the Examiner. For example, Lee discloses "the present invention provides for use of a pre-coded Demodulation Reference Signal [DM RS]" (i-f 59); "[a] control channel or data channel corresponding to each layer 504 to 507 is decoded using DM RS ... [whereby] layer number information is needed to differentiate DM RS corresponding to each channel" (i-f 64); and FIG. 9 illustrates "a base station for transmitting multi-user control channels" (i-f 107). In other words, Lee discloses a demodulation reference signal corresponding to each channel that is transmitted from the base station. Similarly, Feng discloses "the sub-control channel elements each comprise at least one resource element used for sending a demodulation reference signal and/or a common reference signal" (i-f 92). So, like Lee, Feng teaches a demodulation reference signal associated with a control element and specifically that each control channel element includes a separate demodulation reference signal. As such, we find that the combined teachings of Lee and Feng teach/suggest the argued limitations. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1. Appellants' arguments regarding the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 2, 12, and 13 rely on the same arguments as for claim 1 (see App. Br. 8-11). We, therefore, also sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 2, 12, and 13. Claims 3, 4, 6-8, 10, 11, 14, and 15 Issue 2: Did the Examiner err in finding that Lee and Qu collectively teach or suggest "an indication of the numbers of searches respectively in the search space[s]," as set forth in claim 3? 4 Appeal2017-009350 Application 14/234,523 Appellants contend that Qu "is silent to specifying the numbers of searches respectively in the search space of the traditional physical downlink control channel and the search space of the pre-coded physical downlink control channel" (App. Br. 13) ( emphasis omitted). We agree with Appellants. Although the Examiner finds that "Qu does disclose an indication of the numbers of searches respectively" because "it is implied that [ there are] [d]ifferent amount of search spaces in the search space for the R-PDCCH and U-PDCCH" (Ans. 9--10, citing Qu ,r,r 64, 69, emphasis omitted), we find that knowing the different amount of search spaces is distinguishable from indicating the number of searches within those spaces. For example, the cited portion of Qu discloses that "the eNB may inform the UE which resource, e.g., RBs, belong to a DE-specific search space and a common search space"; "some resources, e.g., RBs, in the UE- specific search space may also be in the common search space"; and "[t]here may be rules that state aggregation levels are used per search space" (i-f 64). Qu further discloses that "the R-PDCCH and U-PDCCH have different search spaces" (i-f 69). In other words, Qu teaches correlating resources with search spaces and disclosing different size search spaces for different channels. Here, the Examiner fails to direct our attention to any teaching/suggestion in Qu, the reference the Examiner relies upon for this finding, indicating the number of searches in the respective search spaces. However, we find that the claimed "an indication of the number of searches" merely amounts to non-functional descriptive material. Non-functional descriptive material refers to data content that does 5 Appeal2017-009350 Application 14/234,523 not exhibit a functional interrelationship with the substrate and does not affect the way the computing processes are performed. See MPEP § 2106.01. In a precedential decision, an expanded panel held that elements that do not affect the claimed process are non-functional material and are merely descriptive. See Ex parte Nehls, 88 USPQ2d 1883, 1887-1888 (BP AI 2008) (precedential). Therefore, although the Examiner failed to show the aforementioned limitation in Qu, the Examiner need not give patentable weight to descriptive material in a § 103 analysis absent a functional relationship between the descriptive material and the substrate. See In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579, 1582-1583 (Fed. Cir. 1994); In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (nonfunctional descriptive material cannot render nonobvious an invention that would have otherwise been obvious). See also Ex parte Mathias, 84 USPQ2d 1276 (BPAI 2005) (nonprecedential), ajfd, 191 F. App'x 959 (Fed. Cir. 2006). In view of the above discussion, we are of the opinion that the proposed combination of references set forth by the Examiner does support the obviousness rejection. We, accordingly, sustain the rejection of independent claims 3, 8, 14, and 15 and the rejection of claims 4, 6, 7, 10, and 11, which are dependent thereon, for similar reasons. 6 Appeal2017-009350 Application 14/234,523 DECISION We affirm the Examiner's§ 103(a) rejections of claims 1--4, 6-8, and 10-15. 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 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation