Ex Parte Vedantham et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 28, 2018

14519990 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 28, 2018)

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.
14/519,990 10/21/2014 Ramanuja Vedantham TI-74430 8684
23494 7590 03/02/2018
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
P O BOX 655474, M/S 3999
DALLAS, TX 75265
EXAMINER
PREVAL, LIONEL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2416
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/02/2018 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):
uspto@ti.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte RAMANUJA VEDANTHAM, JIUN-REN LIN, and
XIAOLIN LU
Appeal 2017-009852
Application 14/519,990
Technology Center 2400
Before JAMES R. HUGHES, ERIC S. FRAHM, and
MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges.
FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
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 reverse.
Appellants’ application relates to operating a device that supports both
wireless and wired communication by dynamically selecting the optimal link
over which to transmit a packet. Spec. 118. Claim 1, reproduced below, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A wireless device, comprising:
a wireless transceiver configured for transfer of data
packets via a wireless network;
Appeal 2017-009852
Application 14/519,990
a wired transceiver configured for transfer of data packets
via a wired network;
medium switching logic that determines which of the
wireless transceiver and the wired transceiver is to be used to
transmit a data packet, the medium switching logic is configured
to:
maintain a wireless network confidence rating value
that is indicative of packet transfer reliability of the
wireless network;
maintain a wired network confidence rating value
that is indicative of packet transfer reliability of the wired
network;
select one of the wireless transceiver and the wired
transceiver to be used for initial transmission of the data
packet based on which of the wireless confidence rating
value and the wired confidence rating value is indicative
of a higher likelihood of the packet being successfully
transmitted; and
route the packet to the selected transceiver for
transmission.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Griffith US 2002/0080774 A1 June 27, 2002
Dougherty US 2006/0075124 A1 Apr. 6, 2006
Wu US 2010/0202358 A1 Aug. 12, 2010
Van Wyk US 2014/0036702 A1 Feb. 6, 2014
Kilpatrick US 2015/0038156 A1 Feb. 5,2015
Conant US 9,001,787 B1 Apr. 7,2015
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Appeal 2017-009852
Application 14/519,990
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1, 6, 8, 10, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Wu and Conant.
Claims 2 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Wu, Conant, and Kilpatrick.
Claims 3—5, 7, 12—14, 16, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Wu, Conant, and Griffith.
Claim 9 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Wu, Conant, and Dougherty.
Claims 18—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Wu, Conant, Griffith, and Kilpatrick.
Claims 21—27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Wu and Van Wyk.
ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds the combination of Wu and Conant discloses all
the limitations of independent claim 1, including that Wu teaches “maintain
a wireless network confidence rating value that is indicative of packet
transfer reliability of the wireless network” and “maintain a wired network
confidence rating value that is indicative of packet transfer reliability of the
wired network,” and that Conant additionally teaches these limitations.
Final Act. 3—5. Appellants contend neither Wu nor Conant teaches a
“confidence rating value that is indicative of packet transfer reliability of the
wireless [/wired] network.” App. Br. 10-11. We are persuaded by
Appellants’ arguments.
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Application 14/519,990
For disclosing the claimed “confidence rating value,” the Examiner
relies on Wu’s paragraph 26 (Final Act. 4—5), which describes the following:
Various methods, such as the method according to the state of
network transmission or the method according to the preset look
up table, can be used. For example, according to the packet
transmission speed or bandwidth, the data from the base station
16 is distributed to be transmitted by either the wired network
transmission unit 151 or the wireless network transmission unit
152.
Wu, 126. However, we find neither Wu’s general description of “the state
of network transmission” nor specific description of “packet transmission
speed or bandwidth” discloses the claimed “confidence rating value that is
indicative of packet transfer reliability.” That is, the speed and bandwidth of
packet transmission are both different from “packet transfer reliability,”
which relates to whether a packet is successfully received at a destination.
We also find Conant fails to cure the deficiency of Wu noted above.
The Examiner cites various portions of Conant that describe switching
between different networks, but those cited portions fail to teach using two
different “confidence rating value [s] that [are] indicative of packet transfer
reliability” as the basis for selecting a particular network, as required by
claim 1. See Final Act. 5; Ans. 13; Conant, col. 2,11. 14—23; col. 4,11. 30—
42; col. 6,11. 19-34.
We are, therefore, constrained by the record to find the Examiner
erred in rejecting independent claim 1, independent claims 10 and 17 (which
recite commensurate limitations as claim 1), and dependent claims 2—9, 11—
16, and 18-20.
Regarding independent claim 21, the Examiner relies on Wu for
teaching the limitation “a confidence rating logic that computes and
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Appeal 2017-009852
Application 14/519,990
maintains a wired network confidence rating value and a wireless network
confidence rating value that are indicative of packet transfer reliability for
the wired network and the wireless network respectively,” and relies on Van
Wyk for additional support in teaching this limitation. Final Act. 20—21;
Ans. 30-32. As discussed above, we find Wu fails to teach the “confidence
rating value” limitation. We also find Van Wyk fails to cure this deficiency
of Wu. To wit, Van Wyk describes “routing communications based at least
in part on the determined quality of the links” in a network of multi-protocol
nodes, where the quality metrics include, for example, received signal
strength. Van Wyk, ]f]f 14, 21—22. However, the Examiner has not shown
that a “confidence rating value . . . indicative of packet transfer reliability” is
among the link quality metrics used by Van Wyk.
We are, therefore, also constrained by the record to find the Examiner
erred in rejecting independent claim 21, and dependent claims 22—27.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1—27 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a).
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—27.
REVERSED
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