Mueck, Markus et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 5, 2019

14733606 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Dec. 5, 2019)

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.
14/733,606 06/08/2015 Markus Mueck 30134/01803(P6838USC2) 2130
114746 7590 12/05/2019
Apple Inc. -- FKM
150 Broadway
Suite 702
New York, NY 10038
EXAMINER
PHU, PHUONG M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2632
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/05/2019 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):
fhall@fkmiplaw.com
mmarcin@fkmiplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
_____________

Ex parte MARKUS MUECK, MAIK BIENAS, and
ANDREAS SCHMIDT1
_____________

Appeal 2019-000363
Application 14/733,606
Technology Center 2600
______________

Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, JAMES W. DEJMEK, and
STEPHEN E. BELISLE, Administrative Patent Judges.

NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Final
Rejection of claims 35 through 54. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a) (2018). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Apple Inc.
App. Br. 2.
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Application 14/733,606

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INVENTION
The invention is directed to a method for use on a wireless network to
minimize inter-cellular interference (ICI) at a receiver. Abstract. Claim 35
is representative of the invention and is reproduced below:
35. A method comprising:
at a base station of a multi-cell network
comprising a plurality of base stations:
receiving, from at least one other of the
plurality of base stations of the multi-cell network,
a transmission schedule for the at least one other
base station; and
scheduling transmissions for a mobile
station connected to the base station based on the
transmission schedule of the at least one other base
station, wherein the scheduling comprises:
negotiating at least one frame comprising at
least one pilot tone to be transmitted to the mobile
station by the base station based on signaling
requirements of the mobile station; and
mitigating interference at the mobile station
connected to the base station.

REJECTION AT ISSUE
The Examiner has rejected claims 35 through 54 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Krause (US 2011/0110311 A1, pub.
May 12, 2011) and Lee (US 2011/0134867 A1, pub. June 9, 2011). Final
Act. 2–8.2

ANALYSIS

2 Throughout this Opinion, we refer to the Appeal Brief, filed July 3, 2018
(“App. Br.”); the Reply Brief, filed October 16, 2018 (Reply Br.); the
Examiner’s Answer, mailed August 16, 2018 (“Answer”); and the Final
Office Action, mailed April 3, 2018 (“Final Act.”).
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We have reviewed Appellant’s arguments in the Briefs, the
Examiner’s rejections, and the Examiner’s response to Appellant’s
arguments. Appellant’s arguments have not persuaded us of error in the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 35 through 54.
Appellant argues that the combination of the references does not teach
the claim 35 feature of “negotiating at least one frame comprising at least
one pilot tone to be transmitted to the mobile station by the base station
based on signaling requirements of the mobile station.” App Br. 4–7.
Appellant’s arguments focus on Lee. Appellant asserts the Examiner’s
rejection is in error because although the Examiner’s rejection discusses how
and why the pilot tones are utilized by the mobile units, it does not show that
the signaling requirements for the connected mobile unit are the basis for the
negotiation between the base stations. App. Br. 5. Further, Appellant argues
the Examiner appears to be interpreting the claimed “signaling requirement”
as a base station characteristic and not a characteristic of the mobile unit as
claimed. Reply Br. 4. Additionally, Appellant argues that since Lee does
not teach the limitation of the signaling requirements of the mobile station, it
does not teach that it is the basis for a negotiation between the base stations.
App. Br. 6.
The Examiner provides a comprehensive response to Appellant’s
arguments on pages 8 through 14 of the Answer. In this response, the
Examiner identifies that Krause teaches a method where the base stations,
which communicate with mobile devices using an Orthogonal Frequency
Division Multiplexing (OFDM) scheme, negotiate a transmission schedule
to avoid conflicts. Answer 10–12 (citing Krauss Fig. 4, paras. 83, 84, 85).
The Examiner finds that Krause does not teach how OFDM is implemented
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and relies upon Lee to teach the OFDM scheme where the mobile stations
use pilot tones to perform channel estimation and how subcarriers of the
pilot tones can be adjusted for interference avoidance. Answer 11 (citing
Lee, Fig. 7, 10, paras. 6, 78–80, 86–89).
We have reviewed Appellant’s arguments, the Examiner’s findings
and the cited portions of Lee cited by both Appellant and the Examiner. We
concur with the Examiner’s findings and are not persuaded of error by
Appellant’s arguments.
Initially, we note that Appellant’s arguments do not address the
Examiner’s findings regarding Krause. Thus, Appellant’s arguments
concerning Lee not teaching negotiating between base stations, is not
persuasive as the Examiner relies upon Krause in combination with Lee to
teach this feature.
Further, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that Lee does
not teach the scheduling of transmissions based upon signaling requirement
of the mobile station. The Examiner interprets the term “signaling
requirements” as being the requirements of the pilot allocation or pilot
pattern. Answer 9 (citing page 28 of Appellant’s Specification). We
consider this interpretation as reasonable and supported by Appellant’s
Specification and Appellant’s identification of support for this limitation.
See App. Br. 2–3 (citing Specification pages 27 and 28). We note that
Appellant’s Specification does not discuss “signaling requirements of the
mobile device,” but rather discusses signaling requirements as relating to the
pilot pattern the base stations use to communicate with the mobile stations
(referred to as user equipment (UE)). Specification p. 28, ll. 10–18. Lee
teaches channel estimation is performed at the receiver (mobile device)
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based upon a pilot signal assigned to a subcarrier. Lee, paras. 6, 7 and 10.
Further, Lee teaches that these signals transmitted by the base stations need
to be arranged to minimize deterioration of the channel estimation and one
method of doing this is to shift the subcarriers in the frequency domain to
avoid collision with signals from neighboring base stations, i.e. the shifting
the pilot pattern. Lee, paras. 7 and 86. We consider the pilot signals and
subcarriers, and the pattern of the pilot signals, to be a signaling requirement
of the mobile station as it is used by the mobile stations to estimate the
channel. As such, we concur with the Examiner that Lee teaches the
claimed scheduling of transmissions based upon the signaling requirements
of the mobile stations. As the subcarriers and associated pilot signals are for
the mobile units to perform the channel estimation, this adjusting the
scheduling to avoid collision is to minimize deterioration of the channel
estimation at the mobile device. We are not persuaded of error by
Appellant’s argument that Lee discusses collision is inevitable and therefor
the Examiner’s finding that Lee establishes allocation of subcarriers
differently is unreasonable. Reply Br. 4. The rejection is not based upon
Lee teaching preventing all collisions of reference signals, a feature not
claimed by Appellant, but rather of avoiding collisions. Thus, Appellant’s
have not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection of representative
claim 35. Appellant groups claims 36 through 54 with claim 35. App. Br. 5.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 35
through 54.

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.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 35 through 54 is affirmed.

Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
35–54 103(a) Krause, and Lee 35–54

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)(iv).

AFFIRMED