Ex Parte Yang et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 22, 201613010262 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 22, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/010,262 01/20/2011 30594 7590 06/24/2016 HARNESS, DICKEY & PIERCE, PLC P.O. BOX 8910 RESTON, VA 20195 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Kai Yang 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. 29250-002520/US 2373 EXAMINER RACHEDINE, MOHAMMED ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2649 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/24/2016 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): dcmailroom@hdp.com pshaddin@hdp.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte KAI YANG, CHAN-BYOUNG CHAE, DORU CALIN, DENIS ROUFFET, and SIMON YIU Appeal2014-005470 Application 13/010,262 Technology Center 2600 Before JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, SHARON PENICK, and JOHN R. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judges. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants 1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner's final rejection of claims 1-11 and 14. Claims 12 and 13 have been canceled. See App. Br. 17 (Claims App'x). We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc. App. Br. 3. Appeal2014-005470 Application 13/010,262 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants' Invention Appellants' invention generally relates to reducing interference in a wireless communication system. Spec. i-f 5. Conflict graphs are used by base stations in joint beam switching and Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR) techniques to mitigate interference between nearby base stations in rich scattering environments, in particular for outdoor-to-indoor and indoor-to- indoor wireless communications. Spec. i-f 37. Claim 1, which is illustrative, reads as follows: 1. A method of reducing interference in a communication system, the method comprising: first determining, by a first transmitter having a multi- directional antenna configured to produce a plurality of beams, at least one interference level of at least one interfering beam of a plurality of beams of at least one interfering transmitter in the communication system; second determining a transmitting beam pattern based on the interference level, the transmitting beam pattern indicating a sequence of illuminating the plurality of beams at corresponding time slots, the second determining including, determining the transmitting beam pattern based on a weight factor for the plurality of beams and the at least one interfering beam, and selecting a first beam of the plurality beams and the at least one interfering beam based on the weight factor for illumination during the first time slot, the selected first beam having the highest weight factor; third determining a fractional frequency reuse pattern based on the transmitting beam pattern; and transmitting data based on the transmitting beam pattern and the frequency reuse pattern. 2 Appeal2014-005470 Application 13/010,262 Rejection Claims 1-11 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Kokku et al. (US 2008/0297 413 A 1; published Dec. 4, 2008) and Gerlach (EP 2 148 546 Al; published Jan. 27, 2010). Final Act. 3-9. Issue on Appeal Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Kokku and Gerlach teaches or suggests "selecting a first beam of the plurality beams and the at least one interfering beam based on the weight factor for illumination during the first time slot, the selected first beam having the highest weight factor," as recited in claim 1? ANALYSIS2 The Examiner finds Kokku teaches "assigning beam patterns to different time slots in order to avoid conflicts and reduce interference." Adv. Act., Continuation Sheet. The Examiner finds Gerlach teaches selecting beams based on weights and computing weight factors to select a preferred or optimal beam pattern. Id. (citing Gerlach i-fi-1 89-97). Based on these findings, the Examiner concludes the combination of Kokku and Gerlach teaches or suggests "selecting a first beam of the plurality beams 2 Our decision refers to Appellants' Appeal Brief filed Nov. 4, 2013 ("App. Br."); Appellants' Reply Brief filed Mar. 28, 2014 ("Reply Br.); the Examiner's Answer mailed Jan. 28, 2014 ("Ans."); the Advisory Action mailed Aug. 2, 2013 ("Adv. Act."); and the Final Office Action mailed Mar. 29, 2013 ("Final Act."). 3 Appeal2014-005470 Application 13/010,262 and the at least one interfering beam based on the weight factor for illumination during the first time slot." Id. The Examiner finds the combination of Kokku and Gerlach teaches or suggests "the selected first beam having the highest weight factor" because "[t]he selection of highest weight as cited in the application is being interpreted as weight associated with optimal or preferred beam pattern" and "it is obvious to choose any weight value to decide on [the] beam pattern, once the weights are computed." Id. The Examiner finds Kokku also teaches or suggests "the selected first beam having the highest weight factor" because Kokku teaches "selecting/modifying weight factors that provide beam patterns causing minimum interference" and "[t]his idea is similar to selecting beams with the highest weight factors ... because in both cases the objective is to select beams that cause minimum interference." Ans. 3. Appellants contend the combination of Kokku and Gerlach fails to teach or suggest the disputed limitation because the applied references do not teach or suggest selecting, for illumination during a first time slot, the beam that has the highest weight factor, as required by claim 1. App. Br. 10-12; Reply Br. 3-6. In particular, Appellants contend Kokku does not teach or suggest the claimed selecting because Kokku teaches defining weight as signal amplitude and phase, not as a factor used to determine a sequence of beams. App. Br. 10 (citing Kokku i-f 17); Reply Br. 3. Appellants acknowledge that Kokku teaches determining a beam pattern to cause minimum interference, but contend Kokku fails to teach or suggest the disputed limitation because: Kokku fails to establish that a beam with a highest weight 4 Appeal2014-005470 Application 13/010,262 factor is illuminated first. Rather, in Kokku, "weight" is defined as the signal amplitude and phase. Adjusting signal amplitudes and phases does not result in adjusting a sequence of beams to have a beam with the highest weight being illuminated first. Reply Br. 4. Appellants further contend: Moreover, the Examiner asserts that the weight factors in Kokku are being used in a similar manner as the weight factors, of claim 1. However, the Examiner has failed to cite any portion of Kokku which discloses or even suggests that [the] beam illuminated in the first time slot has the highest weight. By contrast, Kokku simply recites that a pattern may be determined by adjusting amplitudes and phases of the beams to cause minimum interference. Reply Br. 5---6. Appellants acknowledge that Gerlach teaches the use of weights but contend "Gerlach defines weights as precoding matrices." App. Br. 11 (citing Gerlach i-f 92). Appellants contend "[b ]ecause Gerlach defines the weights as precoding matrices, Gerlach does not adjust the sequence of beams based on weights let alone select a first beam for transmission that has the highest weight factor." App. Br. 12. We agree. Kokku teaches determining, for each access point and each associated client that has traffic to exchange with the access point in either directions of a link, a pattern that causes minimum interference to clients of other access points. Kokku i-f 17. Kokku further teaches "the pattern can be adapted to minimize interference by modifying the weights (signal amplitude and phase) applied to the antenna elements of the phase-array antenna." Id. As such, Kokku teaches or suggests determining and adapting a beam pattern based on a weight factor. Similarly, Gerlach teaches using weights as precoding matrix indicators (i-f 89) and, therefore, teaches or suggests 5 Appeal2014-005470 Application 13/010,262 determining a beam pattern based on a weight factor. However, the Examiner's findings fail to show that the combined teachings of Kokku and Gerlach teach or suggest subsequently selecting a beam for illumination based on the weights, as required by claim 1. As such, we are persuaded the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Kokku and Gerlach teaches or suggests "selecting a first beam of the plurality beams and the at least one interfering beam based on the weight factor for illumination during the first time slot, the selected first beam having the highest weight factor," as recited in claim 1. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1 and claims 2-11 and 14, which recite similar limitations. DECISION We reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-11 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). REVERSED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation