Ex Parte Bejerano et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 4, 2017

11057769 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 4, 2017)

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.
11/057,769 02/15/2005 Yigal Bejerano 129250-002083/US 6046
32498 7590 04/06/2017
CAPITOL PATENT & TRADEMARK LAW FIRM, PLLC
P.O. BOX 1995
VIENNA, VA 22183
EXAMINER
WYLLIE, CHRISTOPHER T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2465
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/06/2017 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):
j curtin @ cappat. com
knetznik@cappat.com
ipsnarocp @ nokia. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte YIGAL BEJERANO, S. JAMALODDIN GOLESTANI,
SEUNG-JAE HAN, and MARK ANTHONY SHAWN SMITH
Appeal 2016-002348
Application 11/057,769
Technology Center 2400
Before JEFFREY S. SMITH, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and
LARRY J. HUME, Administrative Patent Judges.
KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2016-002348
Application 11/057,769
STATEMENT OF CASE
Introduction
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1—27. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Exemplary Claim
Exemplary claim 1 under appeal reads as follows:
1. A method for iteratively determining a mobile device-to-
access point association in a wireless, local area network
(WLAN) to achieve load balancing among a plurality of access
points forming the WLAN, comprising the steps of:
(a) generating, by a communications network controller,
a transmission rate ratio that is a ratio of a first transmission
rate derived from transmissions between a mobile device and a
currently associated access point (AP) and a second
transmission rate derived from transmissions between the
mobile device and another AP in the WLAN during an iterative
time period;
(b) generating, by the communications network
controller, a congestion level ratio that is a ratio of a first
congestion measurement associated with the currently assigned
AP and a second congestion measurement associated with the
other AP during the iterative time period;
(c) generating, by the communications network
controller, an effectiveness index from a combination of the
transmission rate ratio and the congestion level ratio during the
iterative time period,
wherein the effectiveness index is a relative indication of
the desirability to continue to associate the mobile device with
the currently assigned AP or to utilize the communications
network controller to associate the mobile device with the other
AP in the WLAN to achieve load balancing among the plurality
of APs forming the WLAN during the iterative time period.
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Appeal 2016-002348
Application 11/057,769
Rejections1
Claims 1,4, 13, 16, 24, 26, and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Balogh2 and Nielsen.3 Final Act. 3—8.
Claims 12 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Balogh, Nielsen, and Doyle.4 Final Act. 23.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
contentions the Examiner erred. Further, we have reviewed the Examiner’s
response to claims 1,4, 12, 13, 16, and 24—27 that Appellants have argued.
App. Br. 6—10, 12; Reply Br. 1—3, 4—5.
We disagree with Appellants’ contentions. We adopt as our own
(1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from
which this appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in
the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief. Ans. 2—8.
We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight and
address specific findings and arguments for emphasis as follows.
1 The Examiner has withdrawn the rejections for claims 2, 3, 5—11, 14, 15,
and 17—23. Ans. 2.
2 US 2001/0024953 A1 (Sept. 27, 2001).
3 US 7,177,649 B1 (Feb. 13, 2007).
4 US 2003/0046335 A1 (Mar. 6, 2003).
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Appeal 2016-002348
Application 11/057,769
Appellants contend,
[0]ne of ordinary skill in the art would not combine Balogh and
Nielsen as the Examiner suggests because such an artisan
would recognize that Balogh’s mobile device/use load
balancing methodology is completely different than a network
controller based load balancing methodology, and, therefore
one of ordinary skill would view Balogh as being irrelevant.
App. Br. 7.
The Examiner finds, and we agree:
[T]he state of the art at the time of the invention had two
approaches for handoff, mobile-assisted handoff and the other
network-assisted handoff wherein both approaches borrowed
from one another to determine when the handoff should occur.
Examiner argued that the features discussed by Balogh
could be transplanted into the MSC discussed by Nielsen in an
effort to save the limited battery resources of the mobile station
wherein such a combination is based on the known state of the
art. Furthermore, moving known features of a device to second
device does not constitute as a novel idea. Hence, moving the
features of Balogh’s MS into the MSC of Nielsen is obvious.
Appellant required Examiner to provide support for the
assertion of the known state of the art or withdraw the rejection.
Examiner provided Yano et al. US 2002/0051438 which
discusses MANO and NAHO as the current state of the art as of
2001 see paragraph 0005 as support. Examiner further
provided Prehofer US 20060099952 which discusses MANO,
NAHO, and a hybrid form of handoff wherein part of the
handover functionality is provided in access nodes and the
mobile device.
Ans. 3^4.
Thus, the Examiner provides a comprehensive response to Appellants’
arguments by describing the features of Balogh wherein the ordinary skilled
artisan would have combined with Nielsen, consistent with the guidelines
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Appeal 2016-002348
Application 11/057,769
stated in KSR Int 7 Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). See Final
Act. 4—5. We adopt the Examiner’s findings and underlying reasoning,
which are incorporated herein by reference.
The Supreme Court guides:
[It is error to] assum[e] that a person of ordinary skill
attempting to solve a problem will be led only to those elements
of prior art designed to solve the same problem. . . . Common
sense teaches . . . that familiar items may have obvious uses
beyond their primary purposes, and in many cases a person of
ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents
together like pieces of a puzzle.
KSR, 550 U.S. at 420 (citation omitted).
Moreover, “[t]he test for obviousness is not whether the features of a
secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the
primary reference .... Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of
the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.” In
re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981).
Thus, Appellants’ contention that the references are not combinable is
unavailing. In addition, we do not find Appellants’ contentions on pages 1—
3 of the Reply Brief to be persuasive.
Accordingly, Appellants have not provided sufficient evidence or
argument to persuade us of any reversible error in the proper combinability
of the prior art references as suggested by the Examiner. Therefore, we
sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claims 1, 13,
26, and 27.
Appellants provide additional arguments with respect to the
patentability of dependent claims 12 and 25. App. Br. 12. The Examiner
has rebutted each of those arguments in the Answer (pages 7—8). Therefore,
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Application 11/057,769
we agree with the Examiner’s findings and underlying reasoning and adopt
them as our own.
Consequently, we conclude there is no reversible error in the
Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 4, 12, 13, 16, and 24—27.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 4, 12, 13, 16, and
24—27.
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
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