Thomas Zasowski et al.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardOct 30, 201914547825 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Oct. 30, 2019) Copy Citation 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. 14/547,825 11/19/2014 Thomas Zasowski 28396US02 2424 23446 7590 10/30/2019 MCANDREWS HELD & MALLOY, LTD 500 WEST MADISON STREET SUITE 3400 CHICAGO, IL 60661 EXAMINER ANWAR, MOHAMMAD S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2463 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/30/2019 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): mhmpto@mcandrews-ip.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte THOMAS ZASOWSKI and OLIVER LAMPARTER Appeal 2018-007296 Application 14/547,825 Technology Center 2400 Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, HUNG H. BUI, and PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20. Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “Applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Swisscom AG. App. Br. 1. Appeal 2018-007296 Application 14/547,825 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to a digital subscriber line (“DSL”) access multiplexer for sending communication signals to customer devices. Claim 1, reproduced below with the disputed limitation in italics, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A system, comprising: a digital subscriber line access multiplexer operable to send and/or receive communication signals to and/or from customer devices at one or more customer premises, via customer lines; wherein the digital subscriber line access multiplexer is configured to: send downlink communication signals for a particular customer device concurrently via more than one customer line to the particular customer device; and receive uplink communication signals from the particular customer device, wherein the receiving of uplink communication signals comprises utilizing more than one customer line between the particular customer device and the digital subscriber line access multiplexer. App. Br. 24 (Claims Appendix). REJECTIONS Claims 1, 2, 6, 8–10, and 14–16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Ahrndt et al. (US 2012/0121029 A1, published May 17, 2012) (“Ahrndt”). Final Act. 3–4. Claims 3, 4, 11, 12 and 17–19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Ahrndt and Lu et al. (WO 2013/026479 A1, published Feb. 28, 2013) (“Lu”). Final Act. 5–7. Appeal 2018-007296 Application 14/547,825 3 Claims 5, 13 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Ahrndt and Liang et al. (US 2014/0023190 A1, published Jan. 23, 2014) (“Liang”). Final Act. 7. Claims 1–4, 6–12, and 14–19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Lu and Ahrndt. Final Act. 8–10. Claims 5, 13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Lu, Ahrndt, and Liang. Final Act. 11. ISSUES First Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Ahrndt discloses “wherein the receiving of uplink communication signals comprises utilizing more than one customer line between the particular customer device and the digital subscriber line access multiplexer,” as recited in claim 1? Second Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Ahrndt discloses “wherein the digital subscriber line multiplexer is configured to enhance a first uplink communication signal,” as recited in claim 2? Third Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Ahrndt discloses “us[ing] vectoring,” as recited in claim 6? Fourth Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Ahrndt and Lu teach or suggest “enhance the uplink communication signals received from the particular customer device using one or more of the determined channel coefficients,” as recited in claim 4? ANALYSIS First Issue In rejecting claim 1 as anticipated, the Examiner finds that Ahrndt discloses “utilizing more than one customer line between the particular Appeal 2018-007296 Application 14/547,825 4 customer device and the digital subscriber line access multiplexer” because it describes VDSL data signals that are transmitted over twisted pair wires such that far-end crosstalk occurs between two of the lines in a single cable. Ans. 3 (citing Ahrndr ¶¶ 4, 10–11, and 65–66). The Examiner relies on a similar finding in rejecting the claim under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Final Act. 8–9. Appellant argues “the claim limitation at issue requires use of more than one customer line for uplink communication from a particular/single customer device to the [DSL] access multiplexer.” App. Br. 7. Appellant argues the Examiner’s findings are unsupported because in Ahrndt, “each of the lines over which the uplink signals are transmitted (and whose effects are assessed) correspond to different respective customer devices—namely, CPE’s 106, 107, and 108.” App. Br. 8. We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments because it is not commensurate with the broad scope of claim 1. Appellant’s argument that Ahrndt differs from the claimed invention is premised on the assertion that the claim requires that the uplink signals’ “effects are assessed.” App. Br. 8. However, we do not discern such a requirement in claim 1. “[T]he PTO gives a disputed claim term its broadest reasonable interpretation.” In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Here, the disputed limitation recites that “the receiving of uplink communication signals comprises utilizing more than one customer line between the particular customer device and the digital subscriber line access multiplexer.” Under its broadest reasonable interpretation, nothing in this language requires that any “effects” of uplink communication signals “are assessed” when receiving them at the DSL multiplexer. Rather, the limitation only requires that multiple customer lines carry the signal. Appeal 2018-007296 Application 14/547,825 5 Ahrndt discloses that far-end cross talk occurs in uplink communications. That is, Ahrndt discloses that when an upstream signal is sent from a specific customer device, the signal spreads to a crosstalk channel and also received via a second customer line at the central office. This disclosure is sufficient to disclose the argued limitation, and we therefore sustain the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1), as well as under 35 U.S.C. § 103, for which Appellant relies on the same argument. App. Br. 14–15. We also sustain the rejection of independent claims 9 and 15, argued together with claim 1, for the same reasons. Second Issue Claim 2, which depends from claim 1, recites the limitation “wherein the digital subscriber line multiplexer is configured to enhance a first uplink communication signal, received from the particular customer device via a first customer line, using a second uplink communication signal received concurrently from the particular customer device via a second customer line.” App. Br. 24 (Claims Appendix). The Examiner finds Ahrndt discloses this limitation because the signal-to-noise ratio is enhanced using low power upstream signals. Final Act. 4 (citing Ahrndt ¶¶ 17, 33, 91, 99, and 136); Ans. 4. Appellant contends that Ahrndt is deficient because Ahrndt does not teach enhancing an upstream signal using a second uplink communication signal received concurrently over a second line. App. Br. 11. Instead, Appellant argues, Ahrndt merely discloses “use of multi-user echo-cancellation as means for enhancing signal-to-noise ratio.” Id. We agree with Appellant. The cited portions of Ahrndt describe reducing far-end interference and enhancing a signal using reduced power and echo-cancellation. Ahrndt Appeal 2018-007296 Application 14/547,825 6 ¶¶ 17, 33. There is no discussion in Ahrndt of using a second signal, for example, the cross-talk signal, to enhance the primary upstream signal. Rather, Ahrndt discloses techniques to reduce far-end interference and crosstalk. As such, we are persuaded the Examiner erred in finding Ahrndt discloses the limitation of claim 2, and we do not sustain its rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1), nor the rejection of claims 10 and 16 which recite similar limitations. The Examiner also relies solely on Ahrndt in connection with the rejection of claims 2, 10, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103, which we also reverse for the same reasons. Third Issue Claim 6 depends from claim 1, and recites the limitation “wherein the digital subscriber line multiplexer is configured to use vectoring.” App. Br. 25 (Claims Appendix). The Examiner finds this limitation taught by Ahrndt’s disclosure of mitigating crosstalk effects. Ans. 4 (citing Ahrndt ¶¶ 73–82). Appellant contends “Ahrndt fails to mention ‘vectoring’ in these paragraphs, and fails to disclose anything that reasonably may be construed as such.” App. Br. 12. We disagree. Appellant’s Specification describes “vectoring is a transmission method that may mitigate the effect of crosstalk and improves performance.” Spec. ¶ 4. The cited passage in Ahrndt discloses mitigating crosstalk and improving performance by “decoding of the upstream send vector u using the vector y’ allows for a higher signal-to- noise ratio (SNR).” Ahrndt ¶ 85. Accordingly, we are not persuaded that Ahrndt fails to disclose the “vectoring” recited in claim 6, and we sustain its rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1). Appellant also relies on the same argument for dependent claim 14, which falls for the same reason. Appeal 2018-007296 Application 14/547,825 7 Fourth Issue Claim 4, which depends from claim 1, recites the limitation “enhance the uplink communication signals received from the particular customer device using one or more of the determined channel coefficients.” App. Br. 25 (Claims Appendix). In rejecting dependent claim 4 as obvious over Lu and Ahrndt, the Examiner relies on Lu as teaching this limitation. Final Act. 6–7 (citing Lu ¶¶ 23–25); Final Act. 10 (same). Appellant argues Lu does not teach the recited limitations because Lu does not enhance uplink communication signals, but instead describes only improving downstream signals into the customer premises. We agree with Appellant. The cited portions of Lu teach the use of a channel coefficient to improve a downstream signal to a customer. Lu ¶ 24 (“To maximize the received signal strength at the CPE [customer premises equipment], and thus e.g. the possible bit rate, a Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) technique is used to precode the signals.”). Lu does not describe any improvement to an uplink signal sent from a customer to a DSL multiplexer, nor does the Examiner provide any explanation or reasoning for why it would have been obvious to use channel coefficient to make such an improvement. Without any such explanation, we are constrained by the record to reverse the rejection of claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103, and also of claims 12 and 19 which recite similar limitations. Remaining Claims and Rejections Appellant does not present separate arguments for dependent claims 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 17, 18, and 20. As such, we sustain their rejections for the same reasons as their respective independent claims. Appeal 2018-007296 Application 14/547,825 8 CONCLUSION The Examiner’s rejection is affirmed-in-part. More specifically: We affirm the rejection of claims 1, 6, 8, 9, 14, and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Ahrndt. We reverse the rejection of claims 2, 10, and 16 under 35 U.S.C § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Ahrdnt. We affirm the rejection of claims 3, 11, 17, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Ahrndt and Lu. We reverse the rejection of claims 4, 12, and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Ahrndt and Lu. We affirm the rejection of claims 5, 13 and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Ahrndt and Liang. We affirm the rejection of claims 1, 3, 6–9, 11, 14, 15, 17, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Lu and Ahrndt. We reverse the rejection of claims 2, 4, 10, 12, 16 and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Lu and Ahrndt. We affirm the rejection of claims 5, 13 and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Lu, Ahrndt, and Liang. DECISION SUMMARY Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 2, 6, 8– 10, 14–16 102(a)(1) Ahrndt 1, 6, 8, 9, 14, 15 2, 10, 16 3, 4, 11, 12, 17–19 103 Ahrndt, Lu 3, 11, 17, 18 4, 12, 19 5, 13, 20 103 Ahrndt, Liang 5, 13, 20 Appeal 2018-007296 Application 14/547,825 9 1–4, 6–12, 14–19 103 Lu, Ahrndt 1, 3, 6–9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18 2, 4, 10, 12, 16, 19 5, 13, 20 103 Lu, Ahrndt, Liang 5, 13, 20 Overall Outcome 1, 3, 5–9, 11, 13–15, 17, 18, 20 2, 4, 10, 12, 16, 19 FINALITY AND RESPONSE 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)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED-IN-PART Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation