13523521 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Oct. 27, 2016)

Ex Parte Zou et al

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardOct 27, 2016

13523521 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Oct. 27, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/523,521 06/14/2012 30594 7590 10/31/2016 HARNESS, DICKEY & PIERCE, PLC P.O. BOX 8910 RESTON, VA 20195 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Jialin Zou 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. 29250-002617 /US 3905 EXAMINER PATEL, DHARMESH J ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2465 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/31/2016 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): dcmailroom@hdp.com pshaddin@hdp.com ipsnarocp@nokia.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JIALIN ZOU and SUBRAMANIAN VASUDEVAN Appeal2015-006475 Application 13/523 ,521 Technology Center 2400 Before ERIC S. FRAHM, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-27. 1 We have jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify Alcatel Lucent as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 2.) Appeal2015-006475 Application 13/523,521 THE INVENTION Appellants' disclosed and claimed invention is directed to offloading communications of a base station via direct communications between user equipments. (Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for offloading communications of a first base station, the method comprising: determining that a first user equipment (UE) and a second UE are candidates for direct communications; notifying the first UE and the second UE that the first UE and the second UE are candidates for direct communications based on the determining; receiving a report that the first UE and the second UE are able to engage in direct communications with each other; and allocating at least one block of an uplink channel to direct communications between the first UE and the second UE. REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 1-11, 14, and 15-25 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Wellig et al. (WO Pub. 01/15387 Al, pub. Mar. 1, 2001) and Vedrine (US 6,707,808 Bl, issued Mar. 16, 2004). (Final Act. 3-15.) The Examiner rejected claims 12, 13, 26, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Wellig, Vedrine, and Chiang (US 8,406,206 B2, issued Mar. 26, 2013). (Final Act. 16-24.) 2 Appeal2015-006475 Application 13/523,521 ISSUE ON APPEAL Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following dispositive issue: 2 Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Wellig and Vedrine teaches or suggests the independent claim 1 limitation, "allocating at least one block of an uplink channel to direct communications between the first UE and the second UE," and the similar limitation recited in independent claims 12, 14, 15, and 26. (App. Br. 6-13, 20-21.) ANALYSIS As the Examiner finds, W ellig does not teach or suggest the limitation at issue. (Final Act. 5.) The Examiner instead relies on Vedrine for this limitation: "W ellig does not explicitly discloses [sic] allocating at least one block of an uplink channel. However, these concepts are well known in the art as taught by Vedrine." (Final Act. 5; see also Vedrine col. 3, 11. 17-23.) Appellants argue the Examiner errs: [T]he Examiner asserts that combining W ellig and V edrine is obvious because the combination would result in fast access to radio channel for a real time user (Final Office Action, page 5) . . . . Furthermore, the Examiner did not identify how assigning an uplink block of an uplink channel to one of the mobile stations, as taught in Vedrine, would result in "fast access to radio channel for a real time user." In the absence of such an indication, the Appellants submit that the combination of Wellig 2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the findings of the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Nov. 24, 2014); the Reply Brief (filed Jun. 17, 2015); the Final Office Action (mailed May 14, 2014); and the Examiner's Answer (mailed May 1, 2015) for the respective details. 3 Appeal2015-006475 Application 13/523,521 and Vedrine would not be obvious to the person of ordinary skill in the art. (App. Br. 9.) We are persuaded the Examiner errs. The Examiner does not explain how the general knowledge of allocating blocks of an uplink channel, which is the extent of the pertinent teaching of the V edrine reference, teaches or suggests the subject matter of the limitation at issue, whether taken alone or in combination with W ellig. Therefore, on the record before us, we are constrained to find the Examiner errs in rejecting independent claims 1, 12, 14, 15, and 26. CONCLUSIONS For the reasons stated above, we do not sustain the obviousness rejections of claims 1, 12, 14, 15, and 26. We also do not sustain the obviousness rejections of claims 2-11, 13, 16-25, and 27, which claims depend from claims 1, 12, 15, or 26. DECISION We reverse the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-2 7. REVERSED 4