Ex Parte LIDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 19, 201713583327 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 19, 2017) 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. 13/583,327 09/07/2012 Xiangyang Li LUTZ 201522US01 1013 48116 7590 12/21/2017 FAY STTARPF/T TTf’F.NT EXAMINER 1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor AHSAN, UMAIR The Halle Building Cleveland, OH 44115-1843 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2645 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/21/2017 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): 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 XIANGYANG LI Appeal 2017-001134 Application 13/583,327 Technology Center 2600 Before JEAN R. HOMERE, AMBER L. HAGY, and SHARON FENICK, Administrative Patent Judges. HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1—4 and 6-21, which constitute all claims pending in this application. Claims App’x. Claim 5 has been canceled. Id. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).1 We affirm. 1 Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Alcatel Lucent of Paris. App. Br. 1. Appeal 2017-001134 Application 13/583,327 Introduction According to Appellant, the claimed subject matter is directed to a method and system for controlling the quality of service (QoS) of user equipment according to charging-related information about the user equipment at a policy and charging rules function entity obtained from a subscription profile repository. Spec. 2. Representative Claim Independent claim 1 is representative, and reads as follows: 1. A method of controlling quality of service for user equipment, the method comprising: obtaining charging-related information about a user equipment at a policy and charging rules function entity from a subscription profile repository or an online charging system; and determining a quality of service for the user equipment at the policy and charging rules function entity according to the obtained charging-related information; wherein the charging-related information for the user equipment obtained from the subscription profile repository or the online charging system and used to determine the quality of service for the user equipment comprises at least one of a tariff package type of the user equipment, a recharge amount of the user equipment, a plurality of price rates of the user equipment corresponding to a plurality of time periods and a plurality of price rates of the user equipment corresponding to a plurality of geographical areas. Rejections on Appeal Claims 1—4, 6, 7, 10-13, and 16-19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Feder et al. (US 2 Appeal 2017-001134 Application 13/583,327 2008/0229385 Al, published Sept. 18, 2008) and Baldwin et al. (US 2011/0086610 Al, published Apr. 14,2011). Final Act. 4-11. Claims 8, 9, 14, 15, 20, and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Feder and Baldwin. Final Act. 11-16. ANALYSIS We consider Appellant’s arguments seriatim, as they are presented in the Appeal Brief, pages 3-12, and the Reply Brief, pages 2-11.2 We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s contentions. Except as otherwise indicated hereinafter, we adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the Final Action, and the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief. Final Act. 3-15, Ans. 2-13. However, we highlight and address specific arguments and findings for emphasis as follows. Appellant argues that the combination of Feder and Baldwin does not teach or suggest the charging related information for determining the QoS of the user equipment comprises a tariff package type of the user equipment, as recited in independent claim 1. App. Br. 5-6. According to Appellant, although Feder discloses determining the QoS for a user equipment based on a billing rate negotiated by the user and the provider in a policy (e.g., policy and charging control (PCC) architecture with a policy control and charging rules function (PCRF) obtained from a subscription profile repository 2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed March 21, 2016), the Reply Brief (filed October 19, 2016), and the Answer (mailed August 26, 2016) (“Ans.”) for the respective details. We have considered in this Decision only those arguments Appellant actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments Appellant could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv)(2012). 3 Appeal 2017-001134 Application 13/583,327 (SPR)), the stipulated QoS charging (flow-based charging or PCRF) does not particularly teach or suggest a tariff package type. Id. at 6-7. Likewise, Appellant argues that Baldwin’s disclosure of retrieving a subscriber’s call detail records (CDRs) (including terms and conditions of the service agreement, selected rate/service plan, historic usage current billing cycle) to dynamically detect and remedy service usage inequities relates generally to charges associated with the subscriber’s QoS, but does not particularly teach that the charges include tariff package type. Id. at 7-8. These arguments are not persuasive. At the outset, we note that the disputed claim limitations recite “the charging-related information . . . comprises at least one of a tariff package type of the user equipment... a plurality of price rates of the user equipment. . . .” In other words, the “at least one” recitation requires that one or more of the recited types of charges be accounted for when determining the QoS of the user device. Therefore, we do not agree with Appellant’s implication that the disputed limitation requires that the tariff package type of charges be particularly taught by the combination of references. So long as the proposed combination teaches any of the charge types recited in the claim, it would be sufficient to meet the requirements of the disputed limitations. As acknowledged by Appellant, both Feder and Baldwin teach determining the QoS of the user device based on the rate plan specified by terms and conditions in the user’s agreement obtained from the user’s profile. Feder 5, 26, Baldwin 6, Figs. 2A, 2B, 7. Because the disclosed rate plan teaches the price rates pertaining to the QoS of the user’s equipment as required by the claim, we agree with the Examiner the combination of Feder and Baldwin teaches the disputed 4 Appeal 2017-001134 Application 13/583,327 limitations. Ans. 2-5. For at least the aforementioned reasons, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. Regarding the rejection of claims 2—4 and 6-21, because Appellant has either not presented separate patentability arguments or has reiterated substantially the same arguments as those previously discussed for patentability of claim 1 above (App. Br. 8-12), those claims fall therewith. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(vii). DECISION For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1^1 and 6-21. 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 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation