Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 30, 2021

2020003044 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 30, 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.
15/503,068 02/10/2017 Hanzhi Zhang P044003US01 6821
152435 7590 09/30/2021
SAGE PATENT GROUP/ZACCO
PO BOX 30789
RALEIGH, NC 27622-0789
EXAMINER
RANDHAWA, MANDISH K
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2477
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/30/2021 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):
outsourcing@zacco.com
zaccoinstructions@sagepat.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte HANZHI ZHANG, TORSTEN DUDDA, PER SYNNERGREN,
and STEFAN WAGER
Appeal 2020-003044
Application 15/503,068
Technology Center 2400
Before JEAN R. HOMERE, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.
BENNETT, 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 55–60, 62–68, 70–77, 79–85, and 87–
90, which constitute all of the claims pending in this application. Claims
App. Claims 1–54, 61, 69, 78, and 86 are canceled. Id. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as
Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ). Appeal Br. 2.
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Application 15/503,068

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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to collision avoidance for uplink radio
resource allocation in reoccurring time intervals. Spec., Title. Appellant’s
Specification teaches that “[i]n cellular networks allocation of radio
resources to a certain user equipment (UE), also referred to as scheduling, is
typically accomplished dynamically on the network side.” Spec. 1, ll. 13–
14. The Specification further teaches that conventionally, “[i]n the dynamic
scheduling process of the LTE radio access technology[,] a UE which needs
to send UL [uplink] data may first send a scheduling request to [a base
station] which serves the cell of the UE” and “[t]he [base station then]
allocate[s] UL radio resources . . . [in a] separate UL grant . . . for each
subframe or TTI (Transmission Time Interval) of 1 ms.” Spec. 1, ll. 26–34.
The Specification notes drawbacks associated with this approach—
namely that “latency occurs which is due to the sending of the scheduling
request before the UE can proceed with the transmission of the UL data.”
Spec. 2, ll. 1–2. The Specification further notes that the use of “Semi-
Persistent Scheduling” which provides “a long lasting grant which covers
multiple TTIs” can diminish latency by reducing the need to send scheduling
requests. Spec. 2, ll. 8–10. At the same time, however, “utilization of such
long lasting grants may result in a risk of colliding transmissions on the
same radio resources.” Spec. 2, ll. 12–13.
Appellant’s claimed subject matter seeks to obtain the benefits of
using long lasting UL grants without suffering the drawbacks of collision
risks by using different operating modes which can avoid collisions that may
occur due to retransmissions triggered by NACK (negative
acknowledgements). Spec. 2, ll. 17–26. In the claimed embodiments, a
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node in a cellular network (such as a base station for example), sends an
uplink grant to a communication device (such as a mobile phone), which
allocates radio resources to the grant and covers multiple reoccurring time
intervals (such as TTIs). At each time interval, the cellular node selects a
mode for the uplink grant—either active or inactive. The active mode
allows the cellular node to receive UL transmissions on the allocated
resources. The inactive mode prevents the node from receiving UL
transmissions over the allocated UL grant. Thus, when a retransmission is
needed by another mobile device that has been allocated overlapping UL
radio resources, the cellular node can effectively disable the UL grant so that
it cannot use the UL radio resources while the retransmission from the other
mobile device is occurring.
Claim 55, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
55. A method of controlling radio transmission in a cellular
network, the method comprising:
a node of the cellular network sending an uplink grant to a
communication device, the uplink grant indicating uplink radio
resources allocated to the communication device in reoccurring
time intervals;
for each of the reoccurring time intervals, the node
selecting between:
an active mode in which the network node receives
uplink transmissions from the communication device on
the allocated resources and provides hybrid automatic
repeat request (HARQ) feedback to the communication
device; and
an inactive mode in which the network node does
not receive uplink transmissions from the communication
device on the allocated resources and refrains from
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sending HARQ feedback to the communication device;
and
in response to detecting a need for an uplink
retransmission by a further communication device in at least a
part of the allocated uplink radio resources in one of the time
intervals, the node sending control information to the
communication device, the control information temporarily
disabling utilization of at least the part of the allocated uplink
radio resources in at least the one of the time intervals by the
communication device.
Appeal Br. 11 (Claims Appendix).
REFERENCES2
The Examiner prior art relies upon the following prior art:
Name Reference Date
Laroia US 2007/0066273 A1 Mar. 22, 2007
Feuersanger US 2012/0069805 A1 Mar. 22, 2012
Hammarwall US 2014/0177487 A1 June 26, 2014
REJECTIONS
Claims 55–60, 62–68, 70, 72–77, 79–85, 87, 89 and 90 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Hammarwall and Laroia.
Final Act. 3–14.
Claims 71 and 88 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Hammarwall, Laroia, and Feuersanger. Final Act. 14–15.
ISSUE
Has the Examiner erred in finding Laroia teaches or suggests:
for each of the reoccurring time intervals, the node
selecting between:

2 Citations to the references are to the first named inventor only.
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an active mode in which the network node receives
uplink transmissions from the communication device on
the allocated resources and provides hybrid automatic
repeat request (HARQ) feedback to the communication
device; and
an inactive mode in which the network node does
not receive uplink transmissions from the communication
device on the allocated resources and refrains from
sending HARQ feedback to the communication device;
as recited in claim 55?
ANALYSIS
The Examiner rejects claim 55 as obvious over Hammarwall and
Laroia. Final Act. 3. The Examiner relies on Hammarwall for teaching the
first and last steps of the method recited in claim 55. Id. at 3–4. That is, the
Examiner finds Hammarwall teaches sending a long lasting UL grant to a
mobile device, and temporarily disabling a portion of the UL grant when the
node detects a need for uplink retransmission by another device in the
network. Id. The Examiner finds that Hammarwall does not teach doing so
using an active mode and an inactive mode as recited in claim 55. Id. at 4.
To address this deficiency, the Examiner cites Laroia. Id. at 5. Specifically,
the Examiner finds that Laroia’s description of a base station that supports
an active mode of operation and a transmit standby mode of operation
teaches the claimed “active mode” and “inactive mode” as recited in
claim 55. Id. (citing Laroia ¶¶ 33, 36, 38, 87, 88; Fig. 11); see also Ans. 19–
25 (additionally citing ¶¶ 60, 66, 75; Figs. 13A–13C). The Examiner
determines that it would have been obvious to incorporate Laroia’s active
and transmit standby modes into Hammarwall “to support multiple modes of
operation.” Final Act. 5 (citing Laroia ¶ 5).
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Appellant argues that the rejection is in error because “each of the
independent claims recites selecting between active and inactive modes for a
reoccurring time interval specified by an uplink grant” and that “[t]his aspect
of the claimed invention is not disclosed by the cited references.” Appeal
Br. 6–7. More specifically, Appellant argues “[t]he teachings of Laroia are
inapposite to the claimed invention” because “[t]he purpose of the low
power mode in Laroia is to conserve power when there is no active state
wireless device.” Appeal Br. 7. Appellant asserts that “[t]he Examiner
erroneously equates the transmit standby mode in Laroia to the inactive
mode in the claimed invention” because “the transmit standby mode in
Laroia is used only when there is no active state wireless terminal.” Appeal
Br. 8. According to Appellant, the disputed limitations require that inactive
mode provides that “1) some resources are allocated to the communication
device [and] 2) no transmission is received on the allocated resources,” but
“[i]n Laroia, the base station does not allocate any resources for the wireless
terminal to use in the transmit standby mode.” Appeal Br. 8–9.
We are persuaded of reversible Examiner error. As noted above, the
Examiner relies on Laroia as teaching “for each of the reoccurring time
intervals, the node selecting between: an active mode . . . [and] an inactive
mode.” Although we agree with the Examiner that Laroia teaches a network
node that selects between an active mode and an inactive mode, we discern
no teaching or suggestion in Laroia that such a selection is made “for each of
the reoccurring time intervals” of an uplink grant as recited in claim 55.
Although the Examiner states that “the claim does not specify any particular
‘time interval’ as argued by Appellant” (Ans. 16), we note the language of
the claim requires “the uplink grant indicating uplink radio resources
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allocated to the communication device in reoccurring time intervals.” That
is, the recited “reoccurring time intervals” must occur within an allocation of
radio resources provided by an uplink grant.
As correctly argued by Appellant, Laroia’s transmit standby mode,
which the Examiner finds corresponds to the recited “inactive mode,” is
selected only when there are no wireless terminals in an active state
connected to the node. That is, Laroia’s base station selects the transmit
standby mode only when it is not being used, so that power savings may be
achieved. Moreover, when Laroia’s base station enters the transmit standby
mode, the base station is incapable of servicing any other network requests.
The Examiner does not adequately explain why person of ordinary skill in
the art would have modified Hammarwall’s scheduling scheme, which seeks
to maintain connections and allow for retransmissions on shared radio
resources, to consider using Laroia’s transmit standby mode at each TTI, as
Laroia’s transmit standby mode would render the base station incapable of
servicing any requests at all. As such, we agree with Appellant that the
Examiner has not sufficiently shown that it would have been obvious, in
light of the teachings of Hammarwall and Laroia, to select from an “active
mode” and “inactive mode” at each reoccurring time interval of an uplink
grant to a communication device, as set forth in claim 55. We, therefore, do
not sustain the rejection of claim 55 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Remaining Claims
The remaining independent claims each recite a limitation similar in
scope to the argued limitation of claim 55. As such, we do not sustain the
rejection of independent claims 63, 72, 80, 89, and 90 for the same reasons.
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The remaining claims are dependent and stand with their respective
independent claims.
CONCLUSION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject the claims.
DECISION SUMMARY
Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
55–60, 62–68,
70, 72–77,
79–85, 87, 89
90
103 Hammarwall,
Laroia
55–60, 62–68,
70, 72–77,
79–85, 87, 89
90
71, 88 103 Hammarwall,
Laroia,
Feuersanger
71, 88
Overall
Outcome
55–60, 62–68,
70–77, 79–85,
87–90

REVERSED