Lucomm Technologies, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 13, 2021

2020004823 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 13, 2021)

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.
15/641,095 07/03/2017 Lucian Cristache LUCM-1-1016 4924
25315 7590 12/13/2021
LOWE GRAHAM JONES, PLLC
701 FIFTH AVENUE
SUITE 3420
SEATTLE, WA 98104
EXAMINER
KHAN, OMER S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2683
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/13/2021 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):
docketing-patent@lowegrahamjones.com
patentdocketing@lowegrahamjones.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte LUCIAN CRISTACHE

Appeal 2020-004823
Application 15/641,095
Technology Center 2600

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JEFFERSON M. TREVOR, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.
HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE1
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–25. Appeal Br. 2. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm.

1 We refer to the Specification, filed July 3, 2017 (“Spec.”); Final Office
Action, mailed Jan. 21, 2020 (“Final Act.”); Appeal Brief, filed Mar. 30,
2020 (“Appeal Br.”); Examiner’s Answer, mailed May 1, 2020 (“Ans.”);
and Reply Brief, filed June 10, 2020 (“Reply Br.”).
2 “Appellant” refers to “Applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a).
Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Huawei Device. Appeal
Br. 3.
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II. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claimed subject matter relates to a system for locating and
identifying objects based on radio frequency identification (RFID) sensing.
Spec. ¶ 2. Figure 1, reproduced below, is useful for understanding the
claimed subject matter:

Figure 1 depicts a physical environment 20 including computer system 36
storing semantic attributes and communicating with RF readers (24a, 24b,
24c) and associated interrogators 26 over a network 44 to locate a person
fitted with RF tags 70 containing sensors attached to or embedded in cards,
clothing, vehicles, or other items as the person roams about, enters or exits
the building via door 50. Id. ¶¶ 7, 20–24, 71.

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Independent claim 1, with disputed limitations emphasized, is
illustrative:
1. A radio frequency system comprising:
a first radio frequency (RF) tag comprising a radio
frequency transmitter logic coupled to a first antenna
having a first set of radiating elements forming a
radiation pattern;
a second radio frequency (RF) tag comprising a
radio frequency receiver logic coupled to a second
antenna having a second set of radiating elements
forming a radiation pattern;
a sensor;
a computer system coupled with the first and the
second RF tags;
a plurality of semantic attributes stored in the
computer system;
the computer system being configured to
determine a location for the second RF tag based on a
signal received by the second RF tag from the first RF
tag;
the computer system further being configured to
infer a first semantic attribute from among the plurality
of semantic attributes based on an input from the sensor
and the determined location for the second RF tag; and
wherein the computer system instructs at least one
of the first RF tag and the second RF tag to adjust the
radiation pattern of the first RF tag or the radiation
pattern of the second RF tag based on the first semantic
attribute.
Appeal Br. 20 (emphasis added).

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III. REFERENCES
The Examiner relies upon the following references.3
Name Reference Date
Mohamadi US 2004/0100405 A1 May 27, 2004
Paulsen US 2005/0116823 A1 Jun. 2, 2005
Neuwirth US 2005/0253725 A1 Nov. 17, 2005
Krishna US 2006/0022800 A1 Feb. 2, 2006
Ogai US 2010/0210257 A1 Aug. 19, 2010
Desclos US 2013/0150040 A1 Jun. 13, 2013
IV. REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejects claims 1–25 as follows:
Claims 1, 2, 6–12, and 16–25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over the combined teachings of Krishna, Paulsen, Neuwirth,
and Desclos. Final Act. 4–14.
Claims 3, 4, 13, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over the combined teachings of Krishna, Paulsen, Neuwirth,
Desclos, and Mohamadi. Final Act. 14–17.
Claims 5 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over the combined teachings of Krishna, Paulsen, Neuwirth, Desclos, and
Ogai. Final Act. 17–18.

3 All reference citations are to the first named inventor only.
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V. ANALYSIS
We consider Appellant’s arguments seriatim, as they are presented in
the Appeal Brief, pages 8–19 and the Reply Brief, pages 1–10.4 We are not
persuaded by Appellant’s contentions. Except as otherwise indicated herein
below, we adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the Final
Action, and the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal
Brief.5 Final Act. 3–20; Ans. 3–18. However, we highlight and address
specific arguments and findings for emphasis, as follows.
Appellant argues that the Examiner errs in finding that the combined
teachings of Krishna, Paulsen, Neuwirth, and Desclos render claim 1
obvious. Appeal Br. 8–14. In particular, Appellant argues that the cited
combination of references does not teach or suggest, storing semantic
attributes in a computer system configured to infer a first one of the semantic
attributes based on an input from the sensor and the determined location of a
second RF tag, as recited in independent claim 1. Appeal Br. at 9. More
particularly, Appellant argues that the Examiner errs by conflating semantic
attributes with determined locations. Id. at 10. According to Appellant,
although Krishna discloses tag scan database, which is a history of scanned
locations for the tag over time (i.e., a list of the localized position of the

4 We have considered in this Decision only those arguments Appellant
actually raised in the Briefs. Arguments not made are forfeited. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2017).
5 See ICON Health and Fitness, Inc. v. Strava, Inc., 849 F.3d 1034, 1042
(Fed. Cir. 2017) (“As an initial matter, the PTAB was authorized to
incorporate the Examiner’s findings.”); see also In re Brana, 51 F.3d 1560,
1564 n.13 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (upholding the PTAB’s findings, although it “did
not expressly make any independent factual determinations or legal
conclusions,” because it had expressly adopted the examiner’s findings).
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tags), Krishna does not teach inferring an entry in the tag scan database
based on an input from the sensor and the determined location for a second
entry in the database. Id. (citing Krishna ¶¶ 94, 191), Reply Br. 2–3 (citing
Krishna ¶¶ 68, 70, 89, 90, 106, 298, 653).
Appellant’s arguments are not persuasive of reversible Examiner
error. As noted above, the disputed claim limitations recite storing semantic
attributes in a computer system configured to infer a first one of the semantic
attributes based on an input from the sensor and the determined location of a
second RF tag. As an initial matter, while Appellant objects strenuously to
the Examiner’s construction of “semantic attributes” as being different from
tag localization or sensor input, Appellant fails to provide a definition for
“semantic attributes”. Nor does Appellant challenge the Examiner’s claim
construction that, pursuant to a Board Decision in a related appeal (2018-
003362, S/N 13/921,933, dated September 19, 2018), “semantic attributes”
as information descriptive of the circumstances (e.g., movement, condition)
of the tags. Ans. 4 (citing prior Dec. 6). Consequently, we construe the
disputed claim limitations set forth above as storing information regarding
movement of tags (tag movement) in the computer, which infers a first tag
movement based on an input from the sensor and the determined location of
a second tag. Spec. ¶¶ 36–39.
Krishna discloses a tag processing component including a tag scan
database storing tag location events collected from a plurality of tags by
various tag interrogation zones with the aid of sensors during each tag
interrogation. Krishna ¶ 90. More particularly, Krishna discloses the
following:
The sensor data reported by these tags may also be
associated with other tags based on their physical proximity to
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the sensor-bearing tags. In another embodiment, tags having
environmental sensors may be disposed at fixed locations
within the various interrogation zones of the readers, and the
sensor data reported by these tags may be associated with the
other tags based on their physical proximity to the fixed sensor-
bearing tags. The tags disposed at fixed locations can also
function as location benchmarks in the event their actual
physical locations within the RFID environment are known.
One or more of the readers may incorporate environmental
sensors or sensor inputs. The sensor data provided by such a
sensor may be associated with a subset or all of the tag
interrogations performed by the reader.

Krishna ¶ 90 (emphasis added).

The steerable beam antenna described above can also be
used to determine the direction of movement of a tag or a group
of tags by discriminating the signal level when the direction of
the antenna beam or the beam pattern is changed. In one
embodiment, a small angle dithering of the beam is employed at
a rate faster than the rate that the tag moves through the angle
of beam change, and the received signal level is differentiated.
The sign of the differentiated output is then correlated with the
direction of beam movement. The sign of the correlator output
determines the side of the beam that the tag is on. The received
signal level can be integrated to determine whether the tag is
moving into the main beam or away from it. The combination
of knowing what side of the beam the tag is on, and whether it
is approaching or leaving the beam's field, determines the
direction of travel of the tag along the axis perpendicular to
the bore-sight and in the direction of the dither.

Id. ¶ 68.

Consistent with the claim interpretation above, we agree with the
Examiner that Krishna’s disclosure of storing in the computer data regarding
location events collected from the tags by sensors in interrogation zones,
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wherein the collected data includes fixed location of the tags as well as
movement of a tag or groups of tags teaches the disputed limitations. Ans.
4–9 (citing Krishna ¶¶ 68, 70, 89, 90). As correctly noted by the Examiner,
Krishna’s disclosed computer system is therefore configured to infer the
movement of a tag from the data in the scan database according to inputs
collected from the sensor and the determined location of another tag. Id.
Further, we agree with the Examiner that Krishna’s disclosure of instructing
an RF tag to adjust a radiation pattern based on an entry in the tag scan
database teaches or suggests the RF tag adjusting a radiation pattern based
the semantic attributes. Id. at 9–10 (citing Krishna 66, 68, 280, 298).
Consequently, on this record, the Examiner has established that the
combination of Krishna, Paulsen, Neuwirth, and Desclos teaches or suggests
the disputed claim limitations. Because we are not persuaded of Examiner
error, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 as obvious over the
combination of Krishna, Paulsen, Neuwirth, and Desclos.
Regarding the rejections of claims 2–25, Appellant either does not
present separate patentability arguments or reiterates substantially the same
arguments as those discussed above for the patentability of claim 1. As such,
claims 2–25, fall with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
VI. CONCLUSION
On this record, we affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–25.
VII. DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
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Application 15/641,095
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Claims
Rejected 35 U.S.C. § References s Affirmed Reversed
1, 2, 6–12, 16–
25 103
Krishna, Paulsen,
Neuwirth, Desclos
1, 2, 6–12, 16–
25
3, 4, 13, 14 103
Krishna, Paulsen,
Neuwirth, Desclos,
Mohamadi
3, 4, 13, 14
5, 15 103
Krishna, Paulsen,
Neuwirth, Desclos,
Ogai
5, 15
Overall
Outcome 1–25

VIII. TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED