Ex Parte WongDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 6, 201713703776 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 6, 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. 13/703,776 06/03/2013 Shin Horng Wong LUTZ 201567US01 8168 48116 7590 09/08/2017 FAY STTARPF/T TTf’F.NT EXAMINER 1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor SHAH, SAUMIT The Halle Building Cleveland, OH 44115-1843 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2414 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/08/2017 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 SHIN HORNG WONG Appeal 2017-004525 Application 13/703,7761 Technology Center 2400 Before JEFFREY S. SMITH, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and TERRENCE W. McMILLIN, Administrative Patent Judges. McMILLIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the final rejection of claims 1—15. Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Alcatel Lucent (App. Br. 1). Appeal 2017-004525 Application 13/703,776 THE CLAIMED INVENTION The present invention relates to “a method of requesting a radio interface common reconfiguration, a base station, a method of performing a radio interface common reconfiguration, user equipment and computer program products.” Spec. 1: 5—7. Independent claims 1 and 11 are directed to methods; independent claim 10 is directed to a base station; and independent claim 15 is directed to user equipment. App. Br. 22, 24—27. Claim 1 recites 1. A method of requesting a radio interface common reconfiguration to be made by a group of user equipment from within a plurality of user equipment being supported by a base station in a multi-carrier wireless communications system, the method comprising: determining said radio interface common reconfiguration to be made by said group of user equipment, wherein said radio interface common reconfiguration represents one or more requested radio interface changes to be implemented in common across user equipment within the group of user equipment being supported by the base station; encoding said radio interface common reconfiguration in a payload field of an high speed shared control channel (HS- SCCH) order; encoding, in said HS-SCCH order, an indication associating said HS-SCCH order with said group of user equipment; and transmitting said HS-SCCH order to said plurality of user equipment being supported by said base station. REJECTIONS ON APPEAL Claims 1—3, 7—12, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gholmieh et al. (US 2009/0257387 Al, published 2 Appeal 2017-004525 Application 13/703,776 Oct. 15, 2009) and Pani et al. (US 2013/0329652 Al, published Dec. 12, 2013). Final Act. 2. Claims 4—6, 13, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gholmieh, Pani, and Sahai et al. (US 2010/0112974 Al, published May 6, 2010). Final Act. 8. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner erred. We are not persuaded that Appellant identifies reversible error. Upon consideration of the arguments presented in the Appeal Brief and Reply Brief, we agree with the Examiner that all the pending claims are unpatentable over the cited combination of references. We adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the rejection from which this appeal is taken and in the Examiner’s Answer. We provide the following explanation to highlight and address specific arguments and findings primarily for emphasis. Appellant contends Pani describes “a common part of a joint HS- SCCH format” but “there is no specific discussion of a single message that can be sent to a group of user equipment to cause that group of user equipment to make a common reconfiguration of their radio interface,” as required in independent claim 1. App. Br. 10; Reply Br. 3. We are not persuaded of error in the rejection, because the Examiner relies on Gholmieh to teach the claimed “determining said radio interface common reconfiguration to be made by said group of user equipment.” Final Act. 3 (citing Gholmieh || 70, 73, and 78). Gholmieh discloses that “[cjontrol module 520 employs a physical protocol module 522 to generate 3 Appeal 2017-004525 Application 13/703,776 an HS-SCCH order. . . instructing AT(s) 504 to implement the identified action” and “the order can instruct AT(s) 504 to deactivate or release non anchor carriers.” Gholmieh 178. We agree with the Examiner’s finding that Gholmieh teaches “the control module generates an HS-SCCH order instructing ATs to implement the identified action” (Ans. 4, 7), meaning a single order is sent to the group of ATs to make a common “carrier activation/deactivation” reconfiguration of their radio interface (Final Act. 3 (citing Gholmieh || 70, 73, and 78)). Appellant does not persuasively rebut these findings by the Examiner regarding Gholmieh. Appellant further argues Pani does not teach “an indication that is encoded in an HS-SCCH order which associates that order with a predetermined group of user equipment so as to help differentiate the HS- SCCH order intended for a group of user equipment from existing HS- SCCH orders intended for individual user equipment.” App. Br. 10 (citing Spec. 3); Reply Br. 3. Appellant’s Specification provides an example wherein “indication may also be encoded in the HS-SCCH order which associates that order with a predetermined group of user equipment” and that it “will be appreciated that this indication helps to differentiate the HS-SCCH order intended for a group of user equipment from existing HS-SCCH orders intended for individual user equipment.” However, claim 1 merely recites “encoding, in said HS-SCCH order, an indication associating said HS-SCCH order with said group of user equipment,” and there is no requirement in the claim for the indication to also “help differentiate the HS-SCCH order intended for a group of user equipment from existing HS-SCCH orders intended for individual user equipment.” 4 Appeal 2017-004525 Application 13/703,776 We conclude Appellant is attempting to interpret claim 1 to impermissibly import “help differentiate the HS-SCCH order intended for a group of user equipment from existing HS-SCCH orders intended for individual user equipment” from the Specification into the claim. See Phillips v. AWHCorp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc) (cautioning against reading limitations from the Specification into the claims). As such, we find Appellant’s argument unpersuasive and we decline to find Examiner error based on Appellant’s proposed importation of limitations from the Specification. Although the claims are interpreted in light of the Specification, limitations from the Specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Under the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with Appellant’s disclosure, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that the claimed “indication associating said HS-SCCH order with said group of user equipment” encompasses Pani’s group WTRU identity applied to the common part of the joint HS-SCCH to identify the WTRUs in the group. Final Act. 3^4 (citing Pani || 5, 144—145, 148); Ans. 3, 4, 6. However, even under Appellants’ narrower construction, that the claimed “indication associating said HS-SCCH order with said group of user equipment” will help differentiate the HS-SCCH order intended for a group of user equipment from existing HS-SCCH orders intended for individual user equipment (App. Br. 10; Reply Br. 3), we find the combination of Gholmieh and Pani teaches this limitation. We find Pani’s group WTRU identity, shared by a group of WTRUs, helps differentiate the group order from the individual order. See Pani 1148 (“The group WTRU identity... to indicate which WTRUs the control information is addressed to. The 5 Appeal 2017-004525 Application 13/703,776 WTRUs belonging to this group may decode the common part... by using the group WTRU identity, and then each WTRU detects which one of the WTRU-specific parts is addressed to itself...”). Therefore, in light of the above discussion, we agree with the Examiner’s findings that the claimed “radio interface common reconfiguration represents one or more requested radio interface changes to be implemented in common across user equipment” is taught by Gholmieh’s HS-SCCH order to deactivate carriers sent to ATs, and the claimed “indication associating said HS-SCCH order with said group of user equipment” is taught by Pani’s group WTRU identity applied to HS-SCCH to identity the WTRUs in the group. We further highlight that Gholmieh’s teaching of an HS-SCCH order instructing ATs to deactivate carriers, which suggests identifying the ATs to receive this instruction, by itself encompasses all of the claim limitations including the claimed radio interface common reconfiguration common to the user equipment and the claimed indication of the association between an HS-SCCH order with the group of ATs to receive the instruction. Accordingly, we sustain the § 103 rejection of independent claim 1, as well as the rejection of commensurate independent claims 10, 11, and 15, and dependent claims 2—9 and 12—14. See App. Br. 10—20. DECISION The rejections of claims 1—15 are affirmed. 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 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation