Ex Parte Zhao et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 2, 201612674713 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 2, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/674,713 01114/2011 48116 7590 FAY SHARPE/LUCENT 1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor The Halle Building Cleveland, OH 44115-1843 08/04/2016 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Yan Zhao 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 201116US01 8782 EXAMINER HOUSHMAND, HOOMAN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2465 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/04/2016 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): docketing@faysharpe.com ipsnarocp@nokia.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte YAN ZHAO, TAO YANG, and JIN LIU1 Appeal2014-005792 Application 12/674,713 Technology Center 2400 Before NATHAN A. ENGELS, CARLL. SILVERMAN, and SCOTT B. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judges. ENGELS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-9 and 11-17. Claims 10 and 18 are canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part. 1 Appellants identify Alcatel Lucent as the real party in interest. App. Br. 1. Appeal2014-005792 Application 12/674,713 ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM Claim 1, reproduced below with emphasis added, 2 is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for scheduling resource in a packet network, wherein user equipments communicate therebetween using the resource allocated by a network element, said communication comprises talk-spurt periods during which data packets are transmitted and silent periods during which silence descriptor packets are transmitted, the method comprising: said network element allocates resource for said user equipments for communication; both said user equipment and said network element detect the presence of said silence descriptor packet, and said network element determines the optimized number of resource unit( s) to be allocated to said user equipment during a subsequent interval for transmitting a data packet, based on a coding rate of said user equipment, a selected modulation coding scheme and valid transmission times; upon detection of the silence descriptor packet, the network element starts timing for a predetermined period and the user equipment stops using the allocated resource; when the predetermined period expires or a request for allocating resource is received from the user equipment before the end of said predetermined period, said network element persistently allocates the determined optimized number of resource unit(s) to said user equipment, and said user equipment begins to use said determined optimized number of resource unit(s); said network element determines the end of the interval for transmitting said data packet by detecting the silence descriptor 2 In the event of further prosecution, the Examiner is invited to consider whether the pending claims satisfy the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112(b ). Claim 1, for example, recites "silence descriptor packets," "said silence descriptor packet," "the silence descriptor packet, and "a silence descriptor packet." See also Ans. 18 (noting the potential for multiple interpretations of claim 1 ). 2 Appeal2014-005792 Application 12/674,713 packet; and when both said user equipment and said network element detect a silence descriptor packet, said user equipment stops using said determined optimized number of resource unit(s), while said network element releases said determined optimized number of resource unit( s ); wherein if data delay on the user equipment increases or the quality of the channel used by the user equipment degrades, the network element temporarily adopts a dynamic scheduling protocol to allocate additional resource unit(s) to the user equipment. THE EXAMINER'S REJECTIONS Claims 1, 4--8, and 12-16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable in view of the combination of Lakkakorpi (US 2008/0253285 Al, published Oct. 16, 2008) and Cai et al. (US 2008/0267118 Al, published Oct. 30, 2008). Claims 2, 3, 9, 11, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable in view of the combination ofLakkakorpi, Cai, and Kim et al. (US 2008/0084851 Al, published Apr. 10, 2008). ANALYSIS We have considered the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-9 and 11- 1 7 in view of each of Appellants' arguments and the evidence of record. We are unpersuaded of error in the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-5, 7-9, 11-13, and 15-17 and adopt as our own the Examiner's findings and conclusions relating to those claims. We are, however, persuaded of error in the Examiner's rejections of claims 6 and 14. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-5, 7-9, 11-13, and 15-17 and do not sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 6 and 14. We provide the following for emphasis. 3 Appeal2014-005792 Application 12/674,713 Claims 1, 8, and 16 Appellants characterize claim 1 as requiring a network element that "temporarily adopts a dynamic scheduling protocol to allocate additional resource unit(s) to user equipment in the event of data delay to the user equipment." App. Br. 7. Appellants argue the references cited by the Examiner fail to teach or suggest "the aspect of switching between persistent and dynamic resource allocation" (App. Br. 7) in response to a trigger event such as channel degradation or data delay, as claimed (App. Br. 8). Appellants' Reply Brief, however, acknowledges that Lakkakorpi teaches dynamic allocation but argues "the context of [Lakkakorpi paragraph 20] indicates that it is the size of the allocations that is dynamic or variable, and not the allocation itself. In contrast, 'dynamic' as it is used in the subject claim denotes an 'as needed' allocation, as opposed to a persistent allocation." Reply Br. 3. Further, Appellants argue the references fail to teach using both timing and silence suppression to synchronize a silent period between a network element and a user equipment as claimed. App. Br. 8. The Examiner finds, and we agree, Lakkakorpi teaches the claimed dynamic resource allocation with its teachings of Extended rtPS "designed to support real-time service flows that generate variable size data packets on a periodic basis, such as Voice over IP services with silence suppression." Ans. 3 (citing Lakkakorpi i-f 20). Lakkakorpi teaches that with Extended rtPS, "a [base station] shall provide unicast grants in an unsolicited manner like in UGS" (Lakkakorpi i-f 20) and "the number of periodically granted slots is not constant and can be modified according to current bandwidth needs, for example" (Lakkakorpi i-f 21 (emphasis added)). 4 Appeal2014-005792 Application 12/674,713 Further, while Appellants argue Lakkakorpi fails to teach both timers and silence suppression to synchronize a silent period between a network element and a user equipment (App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 4), Appellants fail to address the Examiner's findings (see Final Act. 3; Ans. 3--4, 18-20; see also Advisory Act. 2-9). Instead, Appellants' arguments simply assert without evidentiary support or analysis that "Lakkakorpi does not employ both timers and silence suppression to allocate resources during a silent period" (App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 4). As Appellants do not substantively address the Examiner's findings, Appellants' arguments are unpersuasive. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv); see also In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) ("[W]e hold that the Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the prior art."). Having considered each of Appellants' arguments regarding the Examiner's rejection of independent claim 1, we are unpersuaded of error and sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1. Appellants advance similar arguments regarding independent claims 8 and 16, and we sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 8 and 16 for the same reasons. We also sustain the Examiner's rejections of dependent claims 2, 9, and 17, for which Appellants do not advance independent arguments. Claims 3-7, 11-15, and 17 For each of dependent claims 3-7 and 11-15, Appellants paraphrase the claim, identify paragraphs cited by the Examiner, and asserts "the cited passage is silent" with regard to the claim language. App. Br. 8-16; Reply 5 Appeal2014-005792 Application 12/674,713 Br. 5-10, 12-13. Claim 3, for example, recites "[t]he method according to claim 1, wherein if there is no delay, then the period of said timing is set as 160ms," and the Examiner's rejection cites Lakkakorpi's disclosures of delay in combination with Kim's disclosure of a silence period set to 160ms, in addition to the Examiner's findings relating to claim 1 (Final Act. 11; Ans. 25-26). Appellants argue "the cited passage [of Kim] is silent with regard to data delay, let along setting a timing period as a function of a detected lack of data delay" (App. Br. 15; see also Reply Br. 12), but Appellants do not substantively address Kim, Lakkakorpi, or the Examiner's findings. As the Examiner's finds, Kim evidences that setting a 160 ms silent period was known in the art (see Kim i-fi-1 57, 157 ("the scheduler allocates transmission resources to a UE in the silent period state every 160 msec")), and Appellants do not rebut that finding. Moreover, Appellants' Specification acknowledges that a 160 ms period was known in the art and, in fact, part of known LTE systems (see Spec. 1-3 (describing background LTE systems; "For example voice packet is generated periodically per 20ms during talk-spurt period and SID (silence descriptor) packet is generated periodically per 160ms during silent period.")). We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections of claims 3-7 and 11-15 in view of Appellants' arguments and the evidence of record. We find the Examiner has not adequately supported the rejections of claims 6 and 14, for which the Examiner makes general statements regarding the use of error rate and statistics in wireless communications and cites Lakkakorpi' s disclosures of WiMAX Quality of Service classes. We find the Examiner has not adequately explained how the cited evidence would have taught or suggested calculating valid transmission times "as a function of the user equipment's 6 Appeal2014-005792 Application 12/674,713 historical block error rate deduced by said network element using statistics," as claimed, and we therefore do not sustain the rejections of claims 6 and 14. See Final Act. 5; Ans. 22 (citing Lakkakorpi i-fi-f 19, 48, 49). We do not find error in the Examiner's rejections of claims 3-5, 7, 11-13, and 15, however, as the Examiner supports each rejection with citations to adequate evidence and Appellants' do not substantively rebut the Examiner's findings and conclusions. See also Spec. 1-3 (describing the limitations recited in claims 3-5, 7, 11-13, and 15 as part known LTE systems in the "Background of the Invention"). We therefore sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 3-5, 7, 11-13, and 15. DECISION For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-5, 7-9, 11-13, and 15-17. We reverse the Examiner's rejections of claims 6 and 14. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended. 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED-IN-PART 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation