Ex Parte Zou et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 27, 2016

13523521 (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. § 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. § 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.
§ 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.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Wellig, Vedrine, and Chiang (US
8,406,206 B2, issued Mar. 26, 2013). (Final Act. 16-24.)
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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.
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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
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