INTERDIGITAL CE PATENT HOLDINGS

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 30, 2020

2019004355 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 30, 2020)

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.
14/913,399 02/22/2016 John Sidney STEWART 2013P00058WOUS 9601
24374 7590 12/30/2020
VOLPE KOENIG
DEPT. ICC
30 SOUTH 17TH STREET -18TH FLOOR
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19103
EXAMINER
LIN, JASON K
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2425
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/30/2020 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):
eoffice@volpe-koenig.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JOHN SIDNEY STEWART and MAX WARD MUTERSPAUGH
Appeal 2019-004355
Application 14/913,399
Technology Center 2400
BEFORE MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JUSTIN BUSCH, and
JAMES W. DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judges.
BUSCH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–6, 8–15, 17–25, 27–34, and 36–38.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 We use the term Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a) (2018). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as
InterDigital Madison Patent Holdings. Appeal Br. 3.
Appeal 2019-004355
Application 14/913,399
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claimed subject matter relates to a low adjacent channel
interference mode for a digital television system and, in particular, for a
multi-carrier modulation system, such as OFDM, that is replacing and
temporarily co-existing with an existing standard. Spec. ¶ 5. More
specifically, the claimed subject matter includes allocating non-signaling
data to carriers according to a bandwidth parameter, which identifies a
bandwidth operation mode (e.g., normal, reduced, or extended), sending the
parameter in a preamble to a receiver, and the receiver extracting the
parameter to set the operation mode to appropriate demodulate the rest of the
signal. Spec. ¶¶ 22–24. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. An apparatus for transmitting a multi-carrier modulated
signal comprising:
a source that provides data, said data comprising a
bandwidth parameter, said bandwidth parameter comprising a
normal bandwidth mode, at least one reduced bandwidth mode
and at least one extended bandwidth mode; and
a multi-carrier modulator that modulates said data by
allocating said data to a plurality of carriers within one physical
channel according to said bandwidth parameter to create said
modulated signal, wherein each bandwidth mode determines a
number of carriers within the one physical channel,
wherein the at least one reduced bandwidth mode has a
smaller number of carriers than the normal bandwidth mode and
the at least one extended bandwidth mode and wherein the at
least one reduced bandwidth mode is used for reducing adjacent
channel interference on at least one adjacent channel to said
physical channel carrying said multi-carrier signal.
Appeal 2019-004355
Application 14/913,399
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REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
McFarland US 2002/0006167 A1 Jan. 17, 2002
Linden US 2003/0009765 A1 Jan. 9, 2003
Chen US 2006/0013333 A1 Jan. 19, 2006
Sudo US 2006/0160498 A1 July 20, 2006
La Joie US 2006/0171390 A1 Aug. 3, 2006
Leung US 2009/0245392 A1 Oct. 1, 2009
Scipione US 2014/0248917 A1 Sept. 4, 2014

REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 2, 10, 11, 19–21, 29, 30, and 38 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over La Joie, McFarland, and Sudo. Final
Act. 10–25.
Claims 3, 12, 22, and 31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being obvious over La Joie, McFarland, Sudo, and Leung. Final Act. 25–29.
Claims 5, 14, 24, and 33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being obvious over La Joie, McFarland, Sudo, and Linden. Final Act. 30–
33.
Claims 4, 6, 13, 15, 23, 25, 32, and 34 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being obvious over La Joie, McFarland, Sudo, and Scipione. Final
Act. 33–39.
Claims 8, 9, 17, 18, 27, 28, 36, and 37 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being obvious over La Joie, McFarland, Sudo, and Chen. Final
Act. 40–41.
ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds the combination of La Joie, McFarland, and Sudo
teaches or suggests every limitation recited in independent claims 1, 10, 20,
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Application 14/913,399
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and 29. Final Act. 10–23. Of particular relevance to this Appeal, the
Examiner finds La Joie teaches or suggests both “a bandwidth parameter”
and the disputed modulating step—“a multi-carrier modulator that
modulates said data [comprising a bandwidth parameter] . . . to create said
modulated signal” (the “disputed limitation”), as recited in independent
claim 1 and commensurately recited in independent claims 10 (“a multi-
carrier demodulator that demodulates said modulated signal” and “a
signaling data detector that detects signaling data from demodulated
signaling data symbols and that recovers said bandwidth parameter”), 20
(“multi-carrier modulating said data [comprising a bandwidth parameter] . . .
to create said modulated signal”), and 29 (“multi-carrier demodulating said
modulated signal” and “detecting signaling data from demodulated signaling
data symbols and for [sic] recovering said bandwidth parameter”). Final
Act. 10–12 (citing La Joie ¶¶ 70, 75, 88, 134, 155, Figs. 1a–1b), 17–19
(citing La Joie ¶¶ 65, 70, 87, 102, 109, 111, 131, 136, Fig. 6).
More specifically, the Examiner finds La Joie teaches a bandwidth
parameter because La Joie teaches scheduling and transmitting content have
various service levels, such as standard definition (SD), high definition
(HD), and ultra-high definition (UHD). Final Act. 10 (citing La Joie ¶ 70).
The Examiner finds La Joie teaches or suggests the modulating step because
La Joie’s modulator 162 modulates a signal, La Joie maps program channels
to corresponding physical channels, and La Joie discloses distributing
content having certain service levels on a certain physical channels. Final
Act. 11 (citing La Joie ¶¶ 88, 134, 155, Figs. 1a–b).
Among other arguments, Appellant asserts La Joie does not teach or
suggest the modulating step because La Joie does not modulate data that
includes its service levels, which the Examiner finds teach the bandwidth
Appeal 2019-004355
Application 14/913,399
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parameter, as recited in the disputed limitation. Appeal Br. 9 (“Applicants’
claim 1 requires that the modulated data comprise a bandwidth parameter.”).
More specifically, Appellant asserts that, to the extent La Joie’s service
levels (e.g., standard definition (SD), high definition (HD), and ultra-high
definition (UHD)) teach a bandwidth parameter, “there is no description, or
suggestion, in La Joie, of a bandwidth parameter that is in the data as
required.” Appeal Br. 9.
The Examiner responds to Appellant’s argument by finding that the
claims do not recite the particular structure or format of the bandwidth
parameter, requiring only that the data comprises the bandwidth parameter.
Ans. 35. The Examiner finds the parameter, therefore, may be in any form,
including La Joie’s disclosed “service levels of SD, HD, [and] UHD” (ultra-
high definition). Ans. 35. The Examiner also finds the distributed content
has various properties (e.g., format, resolution, frame size, and file size) that
“would provide the associated bandwidth parameter.” Ans. 35. The
Examiner concludes that “La Joie’s service mode and/or properties
pertaining to the content itself under broad[e]st reasonable interpretation
meets Appellant[’]s claimed limitation where ‘data comprising a bandwidth
parameter.’” Ans. 35–36.
We agree with the Examiner that the claim does not require a
particular form for the bandwidth parameter and that, to the extent La Joie
suggests parameters indicating the different service levels, such parameters
may teach a bandwidth parameter. We disagree, however, that merely the
fact that distributed content has certain properties, such as a service level,
teaches or suggests including such properties as a parameter, let alone a
bandwidth parameter, in the modulated data, as recited in Appellant’s
claims.
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Even assuming that La Joie stores the service level as a parameter for
some purpose (e.g., to construct the mapping information), we see nothing in
the Examiner’s findings or La Joie’s cited disclosures that teaches or
suggests transmitting the service level (or any other content property).
Accordingly, the record does not support a finding that La Joie modulates
data that includes La Joie’s service level to create a modulated signal.
Furthermore, the mapping information, which the CPE uses to tune its tuner
to a physical channel, associates program channels with physical channels
on which programming content will be transmitted, but there is no
suggestion that the mapping information includes the service levels. La Joie
¶¶ 85–89. Accordingly, we see nothing in the Examiner’s findings or La
Joie’s cited disclosures that teaches or suggests that the mapping information
or the content, which are modulated and sent to the customer premises
equipment (CPE), include La Joie’s service levels (or any other property that
may teach a bandwidth parameter).
CONCLUSION
For the above reasons, on this record, we do not sustain the rejection
of independent claims 1, 10, 20, and 29, which recite the disputed
modulating step, under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over La Joie, McFarland,
and Sudo. Nor do we sustain the rejection of claims 2, 11, 19, 21, 30, and
38, which depend therefrom and incorporate the disputed modulating step,
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over La Joie, McFarland, and Sudo. The
Examiner does not find any one of Leung, Linden, Scipione, and Chen cures
this deficiency. Therefore we do not sustain the rejections of claims 3–6, 8,
9, 12–15, 17, 18, 22–25, 27, 28, 31–34, 36, and 37, which depend from one
of claims 1, 10, 20, and 29, thereby incorporating the disputed modulating
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step, under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over La Joie, McFarland, and Sudo
in combination with one of Leung, Linden, Scipione, and Chen.
Because we do not sustain the rejection for the above reasons, we
need not address Appellant’s other arguments.
DECISION SUMMARY
Claims
Rejected
35
U.S.C. §
References Affirmed Reversed
1, 2, 10, 11, 19–
21, 29, 30, 38
103 La Joie,
McFarland, Sudo
1, 2, 10, 11, 19–
21, 29, 30, 38
3, 12, 22, 31 103 La Joie,
McFarland,
Sudo, Leung
3, 12, 22, 31
5, 14, 24, 33 103 La Joie,
McFarland,
Sudo, Linden
5, 14, 24, 33
4, 6, 13, 15, 23,
25, 32, 34
103 La Joie,
McFarland,
Sudo, Scipione
4, 6, 13, 15, 23,
25, 32, 34
8, 9, 17, 18, 27,
28, 36, 37
103 La Joie,
McFarland,
Sudo, Chen
8, 9, 17, 18, 27,
28, 36, 37
Overall
Outcome
1–6, 8–15, 17–
25, 27–34, 36–38

REVERSED