Ex Parte Wolf et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 28, 2018

14292682 (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.
14/292,682 05/30/2014 Andreas Wolf 5607.2120000
(P23065US1)
4517
63975 7590 03/02/2018
NTFRNF KFNNT FR flDT DNTFTN Rr FOY PT T f EXAMINER
1100 NEW YORK AVENUE, N.W.
WASHINGTON, DC 20005
RIVAS, SALVADOR E
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2479
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):
e-office @ skgf.com
Apple-eOA @ skgf.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ANDREAS WOLF, TASHBEEB HAQUE,
SARAVANAN BALASUBRAMANIYAN, and
VEERENDRA M. BOODANNAVAR
Appeal 2017-008862
Application 14/292,6821
Technology Center 2400
Before JASON V. MORGAN, JEREMY J. CURCURI, and
DAVID J. CUTITTA II, Administrative Patent Judges.
CUTITTA, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of
claims 1, 2, 4-6, 8, and 10-22, all the pending claims in the present
application.2 See Appeal Br. 1. We have jurisdiction over the appeal under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 Appellant is the Applicant, Apple Inc., which, according to the Brief, is the
real party in interest. See Appeal Br. 3.
2 Claims 3,7, and 9 are cancelled. See Appeal Br. 24 26.
Appeal 2017-008862
Application 14/292,682
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Invention
The present invention relates to “conducting wireless real-time peer-
to-peer (P2P) communications while satisfying the requirements of a
restricted channel or adjusting the P2P communications to avoid a restricted
channel.” See Spec. ^ l.3 The restricted channel uses DFS (Dynamic
Frequency Selection). DFS requires devices to monitor the channel for
periodically transmitted beacons. See Spec. ^ 13. “[Djevices must quiesce
if they do not receive a beacon from a DFS master or other authoritative
source (e.g., an access point) within some number of (i.e., two) beacon
intervals.” Spec. ^ 13.
Illustrative Claim
Claims 1,5, 10, and 11 are independent claims. Claim 1 is illustrative
and is reproduced below with the dispositive disputed limitation (the
“disputed limitation”) italicized:
1. A device for conducting wireless data
communications, the device comprising:
a processor;
a memory; and
a wireless transceiver for wireless communications,
wherein the processor and the wireless transceiver are
configured to:
3 This Decision refers to: (1) Appellant’s Specification filed May 30, 2014
(“Spec.”); (2) the Final Office Action (“Final Act.”) mailed June 1, 2016; (3)
the Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.”) filed December 1, 2016; (4) the Examiner’s
Answer (“Ans.”) mailed March 27, 2017; and (5) the Reply Brief (“Reply
Br.”) filed May 30, 2017.
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Appeal 2017-008862
Application 14/292,682
participate in a peer-to-peer (P2P) network;
initiate real-time data communications with a peer
device in the P2P network, the peer device having a first
infrastructure communication connection on a restricted
communication channel, wherein the restricted
communication channel requires implementation of
dynamic frequency selection;
conduct the real-time data communications while
switching between the restricted channel and one or more
channels on which the P2P network operates; and
in response to switching to the restricted channel
from the one or more channels on which the P2P network
operates:
calculate a period of time since a last
beacon was received on the restricted channel;
and
resume real-time data communications in
response to the calculated period of time being less
than a predefined time period.
Appeal Br. 23.
REFERENCES
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art in rejecting the
claims on appeal:
Song et al. (“Song”)
Bradley et al. (“Bradley”)
Park et al. (“Park”)
Suwa et al. (“Suwa”)
US 2007/0149230 Al
US 2011/0211219 Al
US 2013/0039298 Al
US 2013/0272277 A1
June 28, 2007
Sept. 1,2011
Feb. 14, 2013
Oct. 17, 2013
Dynamic Frequency Selection, available at https://www.cisco.eom/e/en/us/
td/docs/routers/access/3200/software/wireless/3200WirelessConfigGuide/
RadioChannelDFS.pdf (2008; last visited Feb. 23, 2018) (“Cisco”). Final
Act. 4-19.
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Application 14/292,682
REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 11, 15, and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over the combination of Bradley and Cisco. Final
Act. 4-11.
Claims 2, 16, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the combination of Bradley, Cisco, and Park. Final
Act. 11-13.
Claim 4 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over the combination of Bradley, Cisco, Park, and Song. Final Act. 13-15.
Claim 12 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over the combination of Bradley, Cisco, and Song. Final Act. 15-17.
Claims 13 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the combination of Bradley, Cisco, and Suwa. Final
Act. 17-19.
Claims 5, 6, 10, 20, and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over the combination of Bradley, Suwa, and Cisco. Final
Act. 19-29.
Claims 8, 17, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the combination of Bradley, Suwa, Cisco, and Park. Final
Act. 29-31.
Our review in this appeal is limited only to the above rejections and
the issues raised by Appellant. Arguments not made are waived. See
Manual of Patent Examining Procedures (MPEP) § 1205.02; 37 C.F.R.
§§41.37(c)(l)(iv), 41.39(a)(1) (2016).
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ISSUE
Based on Appellant’s arguments, the dispositive issue presented on
appeal is whether the Examiner erred in finding that Cisco teaches or
suggests “calculate a period of time since a last beacon was received on the
restricted channel,” as recited in claim 1.
ANALYSIS
In support of the rejection of claim 1, the Examiner finds Cisco
teaches or suggests “calculate a period of time since a last beacon was
received on the restricted channel,” as claimed. Final Act. 6. Specifically,
the Examiner “equates the last beacon with the Cisco document radar signal
as teaching the Appellant’s last beacon concept.” Ans. 2 (citing Cisco 3,
Step 3).
Appellant argues “[a] beacon is a wireless frame that is periodically
transmitted from an authoritative source, such as an access point (AP), to
one or more wireless devices in a wireless network.” Appeal Br. 12 (citing
Spec. ^ 13). “In contrast, Cisco’s radar signal is merely a burst of pulses of
a high frequency signal used to determine information about a target (e.g., a
flight path of an airplane).” Appeal Br. 12. Appellant further argues “Cisco
itself differentiates a beacon from a radar signal” because Cisco discloses if
a wireless device determines “there are no radar signals on the [DFS-
required] channel, the wireless device enables beacons and accepts client
associations.” Id.
We find Appellant’s arguments persuasive. The Examiner does not
demonstrate that Cisco’s radar signal teaches “a last beacon,” as claimed.
Claim terms can be implicitly defined by the Specification and need not by
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expressly defined in the Specification. “[W]hen a patentee uses a claim term
throughout the entire patent specification, in a manner consistent with only a
single meaning, he has defined that term ‘by implication.’” Bell Atl.
Network Servs., Inc. v. Covad Comm ’ns Grp., Inc., 262 F.3d 1258, 1271
(Fed. Cir. 2001).
Based on how a person of ordinary skill in the art would have
understood the claim in view of the Specification, we agree with Appellant
that the Examiner erred in construing claim 1. Specifically, the Examiner’s
interpretation is unsustainable because the broadest reasonable construction
of the claimed beacon does not encompass a radar signal. Instead, a person
of ordinary skill in the art, after considering the ordinary meaning of the
words of the claims and the description in the Specification, would have
understood that a beacon used in a dynamic frequency selection scheme is
periodically or regularly transmitted to convey channel allocation
information such as a Channel Switch Announcement (“CSA”). Spec.
13, 18, 44, 53, 65; Cf. In re Smith Int’l, Inc., No. 2016-2303, 2017 WL
4247407, at *5 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 26, 2017) (“The correct inquiry in giving a
claim term its broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification
is not whether the specification proscribes or precludes some broad reading
of the claim term adopted by the examiner. And it is not simply an
interpretation that is not inconsistent with the specification. It is an
interpretation that corresponds with what and how the inventor describes his
invention in the specification, i.e., an interpretation that is ‘consistent with
the specification.’” (quoting In re Morris, 127 F.3d at 1054 (Fed. Cir.
1997)).
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Thus, the Examiner does not sufficiently explain how Cisco’s radar
signal teaches “a last beacon,” as claimed, particularly in view of Cisco’s
differentiation of a beacon from a radar signal. The Examiner does not rely
on Bradley with respect to the disputed limitation of claim 1. See Final
Action 5; Answer 2-6. Accordingly, on this record, the Examiner has not
shown how Cisco, alone or in combination with Bradley, teaches or suggests
“calculate a period of time since a last beacon was received on the restricted
channel,” within the meaning of claim 1. Because we agree with at least one
of the dispositive arguments advanced by Appellant for claim 1, we need not
reach the merits of Appellant’s other contentions.
Because we are persuaded of Examiner error, we do not sustain the
Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of independent claim 1. We also do
not sustain the rejection of independent claims 5, 10, and 11, which are
argued with claim 1 and recite limitations commensurate in scope to claim 1.
We do not sustain the rejections of dependent claims 2, 4, 6, 8, and 12-22
for similar reasons.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 4-6, 8, and
10-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
REVERSED
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