Ex Parte Mujtaba et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 3, 2013

11043025 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 3, 2013)

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.
11/043,025 01/24/2005 Syed Aon Mujtaba 17-2 3479
47386 7590 07/05/2013
RYAN, MASON & LEWIS, LLP
1300 POST ROAD
SUITE 205
FAIRFIELD, CT 06824
EXAMINER
VLAHOS, SOPHIA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2633
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/05/2013 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte SYED AON MUJTABA and XIAOWEN WANG
____________________

Appeal 2011-000036
Application 11/043,025
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, LYNNE E. PETTIGREW, and
PATRICK M. BOUCHER, Administrative Patent Judges.

BOUCHER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2011-000036
Application 11/043,025

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1–26. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.

Illustrative Claim
The disclosure relates to preamble training for a multiple-antenna
communication system (Spec., p. 1, ll. 9–11).
Claim 1 is illustrative and is reproduced below with the disputed
limitation emphasized:
1. A method for transmitting data in a multiple antenna
communication system having N transmit antennas, said
method comprising the step of:
transmitting a legacy preamble having at least one legacy
long training field and at least one legacy short training field
and an extended portion having in the range of one to N-1
additional long training fields on each of said N transmit
antennas and at least one additional short training field, wherein
each additional long training field contains one long OFDM
symbol and N is greater than two, wherein said long OFDM
symbol utilizes a frequency grid of M points and wherein a
data OFDM symbol utilizes a frequency grid of M/2 points.

References
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Narasimhan US 7,408,976 B1 Aug. 5, 2008
Sun
Gardner
Perahia
US 2005/0152314 A1
US 2005/0233709 A1
US 7,352,688 B1
Jul. 14, 2005
Oct. 20, 2005
Apr. 1, 2008
Appeal 2011-000036
Application 11/043,025

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Rejections
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 20 and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §112 first paragraph
as failing to comply with the enablement requirement (Ans. 3–4).
Claims 1–4, 6–13, 15–19, 21–24, and 26 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. §103(a) as unpatentable over Narasimhan, Sun, and Gardner (Ans. 4–
10).
Claims 5 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as
unpatentable over Narasimhan, Sun, Gardner, and Perahia (Ans. 10–11).

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief and
Reply Brief, and have reviewed the Examiner’s response to Appellants’
arguments.

§ 112 Rejections
Appellants offer no arguments traversing the § 112 rejections, instead
“propos[ing] to cancel claims 20 and 25, without prejudice, upon resolution
of the appeal” (App. Br. 4). We accordingly sustain the § 112 rejections pro
forma.

§ 103 Rejections
The dispositive issue raised by Appellants’ contentions with respect to
the § 103 rejections is whether the cited art reasonably teaches or suggests
“wherein said long OFDM symbol utilizes a frequency grid of M points and
Appeal 2011-000036
Application 11/043,025

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wherein a data OFDM symbol utilizes a frequency grid of M/2 points,” as
recited in each of independent claims 1, 11, 17, and 22.1
The Examiner relies on (1) Gardner’s disclosure of one long training
OFDM symbol, i.e., L4 illustrated and described in Fig. 4 and ¶52 of
Gardner, having 128 subcarriers (Ans. 13); and (2) Narasimhan’s disclosure
of a data OFDM symbol, i.e., data symbol DATA0 in data field 412 of Fig. 4
of Narasimhan, having 64 subcarriers (Ans. 13). Because these symbols
have subcarrier numbers that differ by a factor of two, the Examiner finds
the limitation disclosed by a combination of the prior art that incorporates
the L4 long training OFDM symbol of Gardner and the DATA0 data OFDM
symbol of Narasimhan into an extended portion of the preamble (Ans. 6).
Appellants observe that Gardner’s long training OFDM symbol L4 is
for a 40-MHz channel and that Narasimhan’s data OFDM symbol DATA0 is
for a 20-MHz channel (App. Br. 5). We agree with Appellants (Rep. Br. 5–
6) that the Examiner has not articulated sufficient reasoning why a skilled
artisan would combine a long training symbol from a 40-MHz preamble
with a 20-MHz preamble.
We therefore do not sustain the § 103 rejections of the independent
claims, nor of the claims that depend therefrom.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 20 and 25 is affirmed.
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–19, 21–24, and 26 is
reversed.

1 Appellants’ contentions raise additional issues. Because the identified
issue is dispositive of the appeal of the § 103 rejections, we do not reach the
additional issues.
Appeal 2011-000036
Application 11/043,025

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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-IN-PART

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