Ex Parte DUA et alDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 31, 201914580837 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 31, 2019) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 14/580,837 12/23/2014 12371 7590 06/04/2019 Muncy, Geissler, Olds & Lowe, P.C./QUALCOMM 4000 Legato Road, Suite 310 Fairfax, VA 22033 Praveen DUA 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. QC143708 8117 EXAMINER FAYED,RASHAK ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2413 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/04/2019 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): meo.docket@mg-ip.com meo@mg-ip.com ocpat_uspto@qualcomm.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte PRA VEEN DUA, ZHIFENG CAI, MEGHNA AGRAWAL, ANDREW MACKINNON DAVIDSON, SAMIR KAPOOR, and AMOD BODAS Appeal2018-007321 Application 14/580,837 1 Technology Center 2400 Before ERIC B. CHEN, IRVINE. BRANCH, and JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judges. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-12, 15-21, and 24--30. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We affirm. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is "QUALCOMM Incorporated." App. Br. 3. Appeal2018-007321 Application 14/580,837 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The invention is directed "to efficient pairwise ranging in wireless communications networks." Spec. ,r 1. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter. 1. A method of operating an apparatus for ranging in a communication network, the method comprising: receiving, by the apparatus, a request to perform a ranging procedure; responding, by the apparatus, to the request by advertising a channel availability map at a beginning of a discovery window (DW) cycle, wherein the channel availability map includes a list of slots and channels within the DW cycle that are available for ranging with multiple initiators with the apparatus acting as responder; and performing, by the apparatus, round-trip time (RTT) ranging exchanges with two or more mobile devices acting as two or more initiators within the listed slots and channels of the DW cycle that are determined at the two or more mobile devices based on an initiator prioritization scheme, the R TT ranging exchanges including receiving two or more ranging measurement requests from the two or more initiators and responding to the two or more ranging measurement requests from the two or more initiators. REFERENCES AND REJECTIONS Claims 1-7, 9-12, 15-20, 24, 25, and 27-30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) (pre-AIA) as unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 2010/0278060 Al; Nov. 4, 2010) and Choi et al. (US 2014/0029566 Al; Jan. 30, 2014). Final Act. 2-12. Claims 8, 21, and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as unpatentable over Lee, Choi, and Steiner et al. (US 2014/0335885 Al; Nov. 13, 2014). Final Act. 12-13. 2 Appeal2018-007321 Application 14/580,837 OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OF CLAIMS 1-7, 9-12, 15-20, 24, 25, AND 27-30 OVER LEE AND CHOI Claim 1 is representative of claims 2-7, 9-12, 15-20, 24, 25, and 27- 30. See 37 C.F.R. 4I.37(c)(l)(iv). A first issue is whether the Examiner errs in addressing the claimed "two or more mobile devices" (claim 1). App. Br. 5-7; Reply Br. 2. Appellants contend the Examiner erred by reading one of the claimed mobile devices on one of Lee's "fixed" reference nodes 101---03. Id. For example, Appellants contend "the N reference nodes in Lee are fixed, immobile devices with known locations, and not 'mobile devices' whose locations may vary, as claimed." App. Br. 6. Appellants further contend "Lee's N reference nodes ... are in fact required to be fixed so that their position[ s] can be known in advance[.]" Reply Br. 2. We are unpersuaded because Appellants have not addressed the Examiner's finding that the "fixed" description of Lee's reference nodes 101---03 merely teaches their positions as a control variable (id. at 4}-i.e., as sufficiently stable points of reference-for triangulating the mobile node 104. In particular, Appellants' arguments do not persuade us that it would not have been obvious for a mobile device ( e.g., laptop) to provide such a "fixed" position and thus serve as one of Lee's reference nodes 101- 03. See Ans. 3 ( defining "mobile device"); see also In re Lindberg, 194 F .2d 732, 871 (CCP A 1952) ("[I]t is not regarded as inventive to merely make an old device portable or movable without producing any new and unexpected result."). A second issue is whether the Examiner errs in addressing the claimed "round-trip time (RTT) ranging exchanges ... within ... the DW cycle 3 Appeal2018-007321 Application 14/580,837 ... include[e] ... the two or more initiators" (claim 1). App. Br. 7-9; Reply Br. 2-3. Appellants contend the Examiner erred by reading one of the claimed initiators ( which are the claimed mobile devices, addressed above) on one of Lee's reference nodes 101---03. Id. For example, Appellants contend: Once it is understood that [Lee's] mobile node 104 acts as an initiator ... , it will be appreciated that only one initiator is ... ranging during Lee's ranging procedure. [Lee] prohibit[ s] other nodes from communicating until a single-initiator ranging procedure is completed[, which] is fundamentally different than R TT ranging involving "two or more initiators" in a defined DW cycle[.] App. Br. 8. Appellants further contend: In Lee, the mobile node 104 performs N ranging procedures, one by one, with N reference nodes [101---03]. In each of these N ranging procedures, the mobile node 104 is the initiat[ or; i.e.,] there is only one initiat[or.] By contrast, [in Appellants' Figure 3 embodiment,] Devices 2 [to] 5 act as initiator[s] ... of the [one] DW cycle[.] Reply Br. 2. We are unpersuaded because Appellants have not addressed the Examiner's finding that it would have been obvious for two or more of Lee's ranging devices 101---04 to altematingly be the mobile device 104 (i.e., to perform its disclosed operations) within a DW cycle. See Ans. 5 ("The coordinator node 105 [selects] the mobile node 104 ... and then reference nodes [101---03]."). Appellants do not, for example, present a Specification or art-recognized definition of a DW cycle (i.e., required feature). Appellants instead present, without explaining its pertinence, the above Specification example of R TT ranging multiple initiators within a DW cycle 4 Appeal2018-007321 Application 14/580,837 (above block quote). Appellants thus ask us to determine, for ourselves, whether the Specification example shows the disputed "DW cycle ... [ of] two or more initiators" ( claim 1) distinguishes over two or more of Lee's ranging devices 101---04 that altematingly serve as the mobile device 104. We cannot do so, however, without a presented and supported meaning of "DW cycle" in the briefs. See e.g., Superguide Corp. v. DirecTV Enterprises, Inc., 358 F.3d 870, 875 (Fed. Cir. 2004) ("We review the [Specification] to confirm ... use of the disputed term is consistent with the meaning given to ... the court[-not] to rewrite ... claim language."); In re Baxter Travenol Labs, 952 F.2d 388, 391 (Fed. Cir. 1991) ("It is not the function of this court to examine the claims in greater detail than argued by an appellant."). The last issue is whether the Examiner errs in the proposed modification of Lee's system in view of Choi's teachings. App. Br. 9-11; Reply Br. 3--4. Appellants contend the technologies of Lee's and Choi's ranging systems are too disparate to suggest the modification. Id. For example, Appellants contend: [T]he type of ranging described by Choi (the process of adjusting transmission parameters for uplink (UL) communication ... ) has nothing to do with R TT ranging (round-trip time ranging, i.e., determining a distance base[d] on [the] round-trip time ... for a signal to be sent plus the length of time it takes for an acknowledgement of that signal to be received)[.] App. Br. 9. Appellants further contend: What is relevant to R TT ranging is that the R TT measurements are somehow indicative of the propagation delay between the initiator and responder. 5 Appeal2018-007321 Application 14/580,837 Now, consider Choi's ranging which is used to establish "a frequency offset, a time offset, and transmission power[.]" ... The frequency and transmission power offsets have little to do with the propagation delay between the devices ... [;]the time offset is generally UL-specific or DL-specific. . . . [N]ot all ranging is R TT ranging[.] Choi' s ranging would not reasonably extend to R TT ranging. Reply Br. 3--4. We are unpersuaded because Appellants' contentions constitute mere attorney argument that the above differences of Lee's R TT ranging and Choi's M2M ranging are material differences. See In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997) ("An assertion of what seems to follow from common experience is just attorney argument and not the kind of factual evidence that is required to rebut a prima facie case of obviousness."). Appellants do not explain how the differences undermine the combination of Lee and Choi-namely scheduling of Lee's RTT ranging via a broadcasted map of available slots and channels in view of Choi' s Broadcast Assignment A-MAP IE (Final Act. 6; Ans. 7). Appellants thus ask us to deduce how the differences undermine the combination. It is Appellants' burden, however, to articulate the reason. See In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468, 1472 (Fed. Cir. 1984) ("After aprimafacie case ... has been established, the burden of ... [r]ebuttal is ... a showing of facts supporting the opposite conclusion." (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)); SHOW, Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014) ("To make (facts, etc.) apparent or clear by evidence; to prove."). For the foregoing reasons, Appellants do not establish an error in the rejection of representative claim 1. We accordingly sustain the rejection of claims 1-7, 9-12, 15-20, 24, 25, and 27-30. 6 Appeal2018-007321 Application 14/580,837 OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OF CLAIMS 8, 21, AND 26 OVER LEE, CHOI, AND STEINER Because the above contentions are unpersuasive and the briefs lack separate arguments for the remaining claims, we sustain the rejection of claims 8, 21, and 26. DECISION We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-12, 15-21, and 24-- 30. 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