Ex Parte Lampinen et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jun 25, 2009

10792018 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 25, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte MARKO LAMPINEN and TUOMAS SAUKKONEN
____________

Appeal 2009-002518
Application 10/792,018
Technology Center 2600
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Decided:1 June 25, 2009
____________

Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, MARC S. HOFF, and KARL D. EASTHOM,
Administrative Patent Judges.

EASTHOM, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 The two month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, begins to run from the decided date
shown on this page of the decision. The time period does not run from the
Mail Date (paper delivery) or Notification Date (electronic delivery).
Appeal 2009-002518
Application 10/792,018

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the final rejection of
claims 3-7, 9-12, 14-18, and 20-25 (Br. 2).2 We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
The Invention
Appellants’ invention processes transmitted information in a CPICH
(Common Pilot Channel) to estimate the signal to interference ratio in a
spread-spectrum receiver. One embodiment of the receiver/transmitter
system employs STTD (space-time transmit diversity) in which the power of
the received CPICH is the combined power from each of a plurality of
transmit antennas. (See Spec. 1:32 to 2:3; Fig. 2).
Exemplary claim 3 follows:
3. A method, comprising:
despreading a Common Pilot Channel (CPICH) channel in a spread-
spectrum receiver, wherein the spread-spectrum receiver is adapted to
receive a signal stream in space-time transmit diversity and the receiver
comprises an equalization stage for chip level filtering of received chip, and
wherein said despreading is carried out after said chip level filtering; and
estimating the signal to interference ratio at least partially from
despread CPICH symbols.

2 Appellants’ Brief (filed Mar. 17, 2008) (“App. Br.”) and Reply Brief (filed
July 1, 2008) (“Reply Br.”) and the Examiner’s Answer (mailed May 13,
2008) (“Ans.”) detail the parties’ positions.
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Application 10/792,018

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Prior Art and Rejections
Petre US 7,158,558 B2 Jan. 2, 2007
(filed Apr. 26, 2002)

Onggosanusi US 2002/0196842 A1 Dec. 26, 2002

The Examiner rejected claims 3-7, 9-12, 14-18 and 20-25 as obvious
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 based on Petre and Onggosanusi.

PRINCIPLES OF LAW
“[T]he examiner bears the initial burden, on review of the prior art or
on any other ground, of presenting a prima facie case of unpatentability.” In
re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992). Under § 103, a holding of
obviousness can be based on a showing that “there was an apparent reason to
combine the known elements in the fashion claimed.” KSR Int’l Co. v.
Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). Such a showing requires:
“some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to
support the legal conclusion of obviousness” . . . . [H]owever,
the analysis need not seek out precise teachings directed to the
specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court can
take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person
of ordinary skill in the art would employ.

Id. (quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)).
If the Examiner makes such a showing, the burden then shifts to
Appellant to overcome the prima facie case with argument and/or evidence.
Obviousness is then determined on the basis of the evidence as a whole and
the relative persuasiveness of the arguments. Oetiker, 977 F.2d at 1445.

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ISSUE
Appellants argue that because “Onggosanusi does not disclose that the
signal stream is in the form for space-time transmit diversity transmission,”
“Petre, in view of Onggosanusi, fails to render claim 3 obvious” (App. Br. 8)
(emphasis deleted). Therefore, the issue on appeal is: Does Onggosanusi
teach or suggest a “receiver . . . adapted to receive a signal stream in space-
time transmit diversity” as recited in claim 3?
FINDINGS OF FACT (FF)
Appellants’ Disclosure
1. Appellants’ “invention provides a CPICH (Common Pilot
Channel) processing method for estimating the SINR (Signal-to-Interference
plus Noise Ratio) of the CPICH, in a SISO (single-input single-output) case
and in a STTD (space-time transmit diversity) case” (Spec. 1:33 to 2:1).
Appellants’ invention also provides SINR estimation for a SIMO (single-
input multiple-output) system (Spec. 4:24-25).
2. Appellants disclose that their transmitter either has a single
antenna or “[a]lternatively, the transmitter has two or more antennas for
transmitting the signal stream in order to achieve space-time transmit
diversity . . . .” (Spec. 3:8-11). “According to the present invention, the
communications signals are transmitted with a single antenna at a transmit
side, or with space-time transmit diversity transmission.” (Spec. 3:29-31).
3. “In the STTD case, the power of the received CPICH is the
combined power from each of the transmit antennas. Multiple receive
antennae processing can be applied with the CPICH processing” (Spec. 2:1-
3). “For STTD the transmitted CPICH symbol pair as transmitted from two
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antennas . . . is given by [a two-by-two matrix expression (1)]” (Spec. 4:29 –
5:2).
Onggosanusi
4. Onggosanusi discloses “transmit antenna diversity” in which a
single or multiple receiver(s) receive(s) data from a plurality of transmitters
(¶ 0007).
5. Onggosanusi’s “system 100 is an STTD-type system rather than a
MIMO-type system” (¶ 0084). “Fig. 4 illustrates an electrical block diagram
of a double space time block coded transmit antenna diversity (‘DSTTD’)
system 100 according to another preferred embodiment” (¶ 0082).
“[S]ystem 100 is based on STTD communications” involving “double STTD
encoding” (¶ 0089).
6. “Turning then to system 100 . . . STTD technology in general is
known in the art” (¶ 0082). DSTTD system 100 has multiple antennas (id.).
The “two STTD encoders 1051 an[d] 1052” in transmitter 102 render
“system 100 . . . a ‘double’ STTD system” (¶ 0083; Fig. 4).
7. System 100 comprises two “STTD decoders” 1101 and 1102 in
receiver 104 (¶ 0088; Fig. 4).
8. Onggosanusi’s receiver uses a CPICH to determine channel effects
H and the SINR to optimize the SINR (¶¶ 0056-57, 0069; Figs. 3, 4).

ANALYSIS
Appellants dispute the Examiner’s finding that Onggosanusi teaches a
space-time diversity scheme as set forth in claim 3. As Appellants note,
Onggosanusi uses a double space-time block coded transmit antenna
diversity (DSTTD) system. Appellants contend: “In this DSTTD system,
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Onggosanusi uses two STTD encoders to combine information mutiplexing
with transmit diversity MIMO.” (App. Br. 8). Based on their contention,
Appellants argue that “a signal transmitted in a DSTTD system is different
from a signal stream in the space-time transmit diversity transmission,
because a DSTTD system applies information multiplexing into two STTD
blocks” (id.).
Appellants’ argument lacks merit. Whatever difference exists
between STTD and DSTTD, any argument based on the difference is not
commensurate with the scope of claim 3. Claim 3 does not require “STTD,”
but rather, requires only the ability to “receive a signal stream in space-time
transmit diversity.”
Moreover, Appellants’ arguments imply, and Appellants’ disclosure
shows, that STTD transmission is merely one form of space-time transmit
diversity that employs at least two antennas (see FF 1-3). As the Examiner
found (Ans. 4), Onggosanusi discloses antenna diversity and STTD
transmission (FF 4-7). Specifically, Onggosanusi discloses “double space
time block coded transmit antenna diversity” (FF 5) (emphasis added).
Therefore, Onggosanusi teaches “space-time transmit diversity” as required
by claim 3.
Appellants’ related argument that “STTD is a special case of DSTTD
involving two antennas instead of four as required by the system disclosed in
Onggosanusi” (Reply Br. 3) does not rebut the finding supra that DSTTD
constitutes a form of “space-time transmit diversity.” Appellants disclose
“two or more antennas for transmitting the signal stream in order to achieve
space-time transmit diversity” (FF 2) (emphasis added). Therefore,
Onggosanusi’s four antennae do not preclude space-time diversity.
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Appellants’ related arguments (Reply Br. 2) based on embodiments in
Onggosanusi employing a MIMO scheme in a DSTTD system have no
bearing on Onggosanusi’s Figure 4 embodiment depicting system 100,
because Onggosanusi’s DSTTD “system 100 is an STTD-type system rather
than a MIMO-type system” (FF 5). The latter finding renders moot
Appellants’ argument (Reply Br. 2) that a MIMO based “DSTTD scheme in
Onggosanusi is not applicable for space-time transmit diversity (STTD)
transmission.”
Appellants’ conclusory argument (App. Br. 8) that “interference
would not be correctly taken into account by the claimed pilot processing for
the space-time transmit diversity transmission” lacks a sufficient factual
foundation to support it. The argument also fails to explain how such a
“correct[]” “account” is commensurate with the scope of claim 3. Further,
the Examiner found (Ans. 3), without a sufficient factually supported
rebuttal by Appellants, that Onggosanusi’s system estimates the signal to
interference ratio for a despread CPICH signal. The Examiner also found
(Ans. 15), again without a sufficient factually supported rebuttal by
Appellants, that Onngosanusi’s system does account for the interference:
“Due to operation of block 88[], the effect of inter-stream interference from
the signals is suppressed. Throughout paragraphs 0089-0097, Onggosanusi
discloses the processing in the receiver is done to optimize the system and
the SINR or SNR is maximized.” Onggosanusi supports the Examiner (see
FF 8).
The Examiner’s findings (Ans. 4-18) constitute “some articulated
reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness,” see KSR, 550 U.S. at 418, which Appellants have not rebutted.
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Therefore, Appellants have not shown Examiner error in the rejection of
claim 3.
Appellants’ arguments (App. Br. 8-12) with respect to independent
claims 6, 11, 17, and 24 track their arguments with respect to claim 3 and
therefore raise the same issue. Accordingly, Appellants have not
demonstrated Examiner error with respect to these claims for the reasons
outlined above. Appellants’ unsupported assertions (App. Br. 12-13) with
respect to dependent claims 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14-16, 18, 20-23, and 25, that
the claims recite different limitations not found in the independent claims,
do not constitute separate arguments for patentability, nor demonstrate error.
See Oetiker, 977 F.2d at 1445; 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Appellants’
primary reliance (App. Br. 12-13) on arguments presented for the
independent claims 3, 6, 11, 17, and 24 also does not demonstrate Examiner
error with respect to the dependent claims, for the reasons outlined above.

CONCLUSION
Onggosanusi teaches or suggests a “receiver . . . adapted to receive a
signal stream in space-time transmit diversity.”

DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 3-7, 9-12, 14-18,
and 20-25.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED
Appeal 2009-002518
Application 10/792,018

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gvw

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