Ex Parte Cheng et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 16, 2018

13927975 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 16, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/927,975 06/26/2013
27045 7590
ERICSSON INC.
6300 LEGACY DRIVE
MIS EVR 1-C-11
PLANO, TX 75024
07/18/2018
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Jung-Fu Cheng
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.
P23041-US3 1896
EXAMINER
SLOMS, NICHOLAS
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2476
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/18/2018 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):
michelle.sanderson@ericsson.com
pam.ewing@ericsson.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JUNG-FU CHENG, YI-PIN ERIC WANG,
and STEPHEN GRANT
Appeal2017-005897
Application 13/927,975
Technology Center 2400
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, and
ERIC FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges.
DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of
claims 1-23. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 Appellants indicated that Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
SE-164 83 Stockholm, Sweden is the real party in interest. (App. Br. 1 ).
Appeal2017-005897
Application 13/927,975
The claims are directed to improving the reliability for the
transmission of Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) channel quality
indicators (CQI) and antenna weight indicator (A WI). Independent claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method in a wireless communication system,
comprising the steps of:
generating channel quality indicator (CQI) bits and
antenna weight indicator (AWI) bits for transfer to an encoder
in a user equipment (UE);
utilizing a (20, 10, 6) code stored in the UE to produce a
codeword according to a ten bit sequence comprising the CQI
bits and A WI bits;
transmitting the codeword to a receiver,
wherein the (20, 10, 6) code refers to a class of codes
capable of encoding 10 information bits to produce a codeword
20 bits long that has a Hamming distance of no less than 6 from
any other distinct codeword produced by the code.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
• Grant (hereinafter "Grant") US 2005/0195889 Sept. 8, 2005
• Applicant Admitted Prior Art (hereinafter "AAP A") Background
Section of the Present Specification
• Soh Joo Kiat Kenneth, Construction of Binary Linear Codes, National
University of Singapore, 1999/2000 (hereinafter "Kenneth"),
QUALCOMM Europe, HS-DPCCH in support of D-TxAA, 3GPP TSG-
RAN WG 1 #46, Tallin, Estonia, Aug28-Sept. 1, 2006
(hereinafter"3 G PP#46")
2
Appeal2017-005897
Application 13/927,975
REJECTIONS
Claims 8, 10, 17, and 19, as well as those dependent thereon were
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, as failing to comply with the
enablement requirement. In the Examiner's Answer, the Examiner withdrew
this rejection. (Ans. 2). Accordingly, this rejection is no longer a part of
this appeal.
Claims 1, 5-10, 12, and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over AAP A in view of Kenneth and in further view of
3GPP#46. (Final Act. 5---6).
Claims 2--4, 11, and 14--23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over AAP A in view of Kenneth and in further view of
3GPP#46 in further view of Grant. (Final Act. 8).
ANALYSIS
With respect to the independent claims 1, 9, 14, and 18, Appellants
rely on the same arguments for patentability for each of the independent
claims. (App. Br. 8-10). We find each of the independent claims has similar
limitations. Therefore, we select independent claim 1 as the illustrative
claim, and we will address Appellants' arguments thereto.
As stated In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992):
"[T]he examiner bears the initial burden ... of presenting a prima facie case
of unpatentability." Appellants have persuaded us that the Examiner erred
in establishing that the claimed invention would have been obvious over the
cited prior art. (App. Br. 9-10, Reply Br. 2-3). Further, Appellants have
also persuaded us that Examiner erred in providing an articulated reasoning
with a rational underpinning to support an obviousness rejection. (App. Br.
3
Appeal2017-005897
Application 13/927,975
10). See In re Kahn, 441 F .3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006), cited with approval
in KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398,418 (2007) "([R]ejections on
obviousness grounds ... [require] some articulated reasoning with some
rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.").
With respect to illustrative independent claim 1, the Examiner finds
that AAP A teaches the claim limitation of "utilizing a code stored in the UE
to produce a codeword according to a ten bit sequence comprising the CQI
bits and A WI bits." (Final Act. 5). However, the Examiner finds that AAPA
does not teach the added claimed limitation of "utilizing a (20, 10, 6) code"
and relies on the teachings of Kenneth. (Final Act. 6). The Examiner
further asserts that it would have been obvious to the skilled artisan to
incorporate the linear code optimization features of Kenneth, with the
AAP A, in order to effectuate error correction in a network system with
specific resource requirements and/or limitations. Id. at 6.
We agree with Appellants that the Examiner's conclusion of
obviousness is based on speculative conclusions because the Examiner does
not provide an evidentiary basis for concluding that the codes of Kenneth
with the AAP A would result in the claimed (20, 10, 6) codeword comprising
CQI and A WI bits (Final Act. 6; App. Br. 9-10), as the claim requires.
Moreover, Examiners must consider all claim limitations when determining
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