Nokia Technologies OyDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 1, 20212019006626 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 1, 2021) 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. 14/364,670 06/11/2014 Haitao Li 49700-127N01US/ NC76953US 1052 12358 7590 03/01/2021 Mintz Levin/Nokia Technologies Oy One Financial Center Boston, MA 02111 EXAMINER SOLINSKY, PETER G ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2463 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/01/2021 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): IPDocketingBOS@mintz.com IPFileroomBOS@mintz.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte HAITAO LI and YANG LIU Appeal 2019-006626 Application 14/364,670 Technology Center 2400 Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JAMES B. ARPIN, and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 19–29, 31–36, 39, and 40, all of the pending claims. Appeal Br. 1. Claims 1–18, 30, 37, and 38 are canceled. Claims App. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies Nokia Corporation as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2019-006626 Application 14/364,670 2 TECHNOLOGY The application relates to “providing service continuity” during “a handover procedure between local area networks.” Spec. Abstract. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM Claim 19 is illustrative and reproduced below with certain limitations at issue emphasized: 19. A method, comprising: receiving, at a source base station serving a source wireless local area network, a measurement report from a user equipment in dual connectivity with a macro base station, the measurement report including an indication of an ongoing service provided by the source base station including the source wireless local area network to the user equipment; receiving, at the source base station and during a handover procedure, service information from a support node in a core network, wherein the service information includes one or more services supported by one or more neighbor base stations serving one or more neighboring wireless local area networks; determining a target base station from the one or more neighbor base stations, the determining of the target base station based on a match between the ongoing service provided by the source base station to the user equipment and the received service information including the one or more services; and handing, based on the determining, over the user equipment from the source base station to the target base station to enable continuity in the ongoing service from the source wireless local area network to the target wireless local area network, wherein the ongoing service is a local service provided by the source base station including the source wireless local area network, and the one or more services are one or more local services provided by the one or more neighboring base stations including the one or more neighboring wireless local area networks. Appeal 2019-006626 Application 14/364,670 3 REFERENCES The Examiner relies on the following references: Name Reference Date Cartmell US 2014/0341109 A1 Nov. 20, 2014 Kaur US 2013/0215772 A1 Aug. 22, 2013 Matsuo US 2011/0300868 A1 Dec. 8, 2011 Olvera-Hernandez (“Olvera”) US 2013/0089076 A1 Apr. 11, 2013 Zhang US 2012/0236776 A1 Sept. 20, 2012 Zheng US 2012/0100851 A1 Apr. 26, 2012 REJECTIONS The Examiner makes the following rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103: Claims References Final Act. 19, 20, 24, 25, 32, 40 Olvera, Kaur 2, 72 21, 26 Olvera, Kaur, Matsuo 7 22, 23, 27 Olvera, Kaur, Zheng 8 28, 29, 33, 36, 39 Olvera, Kaur, Zheng, Zhang 10 31 Olvera, Kaur, Cartmell 12 34, 35 Olvera, Kaur, Zhang 13 ANALYSIS Independent claim 19 recites, “the measurement report including an indication of an ongoing service provided by the source base station.” Independent claim 24 recites a commensurate limitation. The Examiner relies on Olvera to teach or suggest this limitation. Final Act. 3. According to Appellant, “Olvera relates to selecting a target home enhanced node B (HeNB) for a handover by selecting between LIPA (local 2 Claim 40 is not included in the introductory paragraph’s list of claims (Final Act. 2), but it is included in the body of the rejection (id. at 7). Appeal 2019-006626 Application 14/364,670 4 IP access) and SIPTO (selective IP traffic offload).” Appeal Br. 12 (emphasis omitted). Appellant argues, however, that “[a]lthough Olvera’s [user equipment (UE)] does send a measurement report including IDs of local gateways (LGWs), Olvera does not disclose that the measurement report includes an indication that a session at the UE is LIPA or [SIPTO].” Id. (emphasis omitted). According to the Examiner: There is no disagreement between Applicant and Examiner that Olvera teaches a UE sending a measurement report to a base station, [0180]. The sole contention is whether the information provided in the measurement report includes an indication of an ongoing service. Olvera provides that a UE provides identification information of a local gateway (LGW) or a packet data network (PDN) in the measurement reports, [0180]. This ID is utilized by the HeNB to decide on whether a potential handover to another node would provide LIPA/SIPTO service continuity, [0180]. . . . The measurement report includes an indication which allows a HeNB to determine if LIPA/SIPTO service continuity would exist. This is functionally equivalent to the measurement report including an indication of an ongoing service provided by the source base station including the source wireless local area network to the user equipment. Ans. 4–5 (emphasis added). As noted by Appellant and the Examiner, Olvera states that its measurement reports may include the identities (IDs) of local gateways (LGW) or packet data networks (PDN). Olvera ¶ 180 (“The UE may report the LGW, or PDN, IDS in the measurement reports provided by the UE”). Olvera then discloses: “If the UE reports any such ID, the source HeNB may use this ID to decide on potential [handover] that may provide LIPA/SIPTO service continuity.” Id. ¶ 180. That paragraph of Olvera does not expressly Appeal 2019-006626 Application 14/364,670 5 disclose how the ID is used “to decide on potential [handover] that may provide LIPA/SIPTO service continuity.” However, the Examiner’s rejection is for obviousness, not anticipation. We agree with the Examiner that it would have been obvious to include such LIPA or SIPTO capabilities in the measurement report itself. Indeed, other parts of Olvera disclose the UE providing such measurements of capabilities. E.g., Olvera ¶ 133 (“LIPA capability may be . . . reported to the source H(e)NB as part of the UE measurement for example.”), claim 8 (“receiving a measurement from the WTRU [i.e., a wireless transmit/receive unit] for the target HeNB, the measurement indicating whether radio conditions between the WTRU and the target HeNB support the session”). Thus, Olvera teaches or suggests that its measurement report includes an indication of LIPA or SIPTO capability. Claim 19 further recites, “receiving . . . service information from a support node.” Claim 24 recites a commensurate limitation. The Examiner finds, “[i]n addition to teaching that a UE sends service information to a base station, Olvera teaches that any subset of information related to the service rules may be provided to the source or target HeNB via ANDSF.” Ans. 6 (emphasis added; citing Olvera ¶ 181). The Examiner cites the 3GPP specifications in determining that “[a] support node is being broadly interpreted as any device in a core 3GPP network” and “the ANDSF is the Access Network Discovery and Selection Function” that “is a device within a core 3GPP network.” Id. at 5–6. Appellant argues in Olvera, “the UE, not the ANDSF, provides the HeNB information during a handover.” Appeal Br. 14 (citing Olvera ¶ 181). We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument. Olvera expressly discloses that “[a]ny subset of information related to the identified Appeal 2019-006626 Application 14/364,670 6 conditions or service rules may be provided to the source or target HeNB via ANDSF.” Olvera ¶ 181 (emphasis added). Although Olvera also discusses alternative or additional features by which the UE provides such information, “[a] reference must be considered for everything that it teaches,” including the disclosed embodiments that provide such information via the ANDSF. In re Applied Materials, Inc., 692 F.3d 1289, 1298 (Fed. Cir. 2012). Appellant also fails to adequately address the Examiner’s determination that the ANDSF is a “support node.” Finally, Appellant argues the Examiner fails to provide “any evidentiary support that a person having ordinary skill in the art is capable of bridging” the “significant gap” between claim 19 and the combination of Olvera and Kaur. Appeal Br. 16–17. However, for the reasons discussed above, we are not persuaded that there is such a gap. See Ans. 7. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 19 and 24, and their dependent claims 20, 25, 32, and 40, which Appellant does not argue separately. Claim 23 Appellant argues that “as required by claim 23, Zheng does not disclose or suggest that the measurement report includes information about an ongoing service provided to the UE or whether a target base station would be able to continue providing the same service to the UE.” Appeal Br. 15 (emphasis omitted). The Examiner “agrees with this assessment,” but points out that the Examiner relies on the combination of Olvera and Kaur from the rejection of the independent claims to teach or suggest that limitation. Ans. 6–7. Thus, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument against Zheng individually for the reasons discussed above. Appeal 2019-006626 Application 14/364,670 7 Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 23. Claims 21, 22, 26–29, 31, 33–36, and 39 Appellant does not present separate arguments for any of the remaining dependent claims or rejections. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of dependent claims 21, 22, 26–29, 31, 33–36, and 39. OUTCOME The following table summarizes the outcome of each rejection: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 19, 20, 24, 25, 32, 40 103(a) Olvera, Kaur 19, 20, 24, 25, 32, 40 21, 26 103(a) Olvera, Kaur, Matsuo 21, 26 22, 23, 27 103(a) Olvera, Kaur, Zheng 22, 23, 27 28, 29, 33, 36, 39 103(a) Olvera, Kaur, Zheng, Zhang 28, 29, 33, 36, 39 31 103(a) Olvera, Kaur, Cartmell 31 34, 35 103(a) Olvera, Kaur, Zhang 34, 35 Overall Outcome 19–29, 31– 36, 39, 40 TIME TO RESPOND No time for taking subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.36(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation