Ex Parte Bãdoiu

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 23, 2018

13570435 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 23, 2018)

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.
13/570,435 08/09/2012 Mihai BADOIU 16113-1850002 9421
26192 7590 01/25/2018
FISH & RICHARDSON P C EXAMINER
PO BOX 1022
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55440-1022
NGUYEN, THU N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2154
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/25/2018 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):
PATDOCTC@fr.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MIHAI BADOIU
Appeal 2016-006021
Application 13/570,43 51
Technology Center 2100
Before JUSTIN BUSCH, JAMES W. DEJMEK, and
JASON M. REPKO, Administrative Patent Judges.
DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals from a Final Rejection of claims 1, 37, 38, 41-50,
52-61, and 63-70. Appellant has canceled claims 2-36. App. Br. 7. The
Examiner has objected to claims 39, 40, 51, and 62 as being dependent upon
a rejected base claim, but has indicated the claims would be allowable if
rewritten in independent form. Final Act. 2. The Examiner has allowed
claim 71. Final Act. 2. Oral arguments were heard on January 18, 2018. A
transcript of the hearing will be placed in the record in due course. We have
jurisdiction over the remaining pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellant identifies Google Inc. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 1.
Appeal 2016-006021
Application 13/570,435
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellant’s disclosed and claimed invention is directed to image-
based search queries. Spec. 1:21. According to the Specification, “[a] user
can identify a query image for submission to the search engine, and the
search engine returns a list of result images that are believed to be similar to
the query image.” Spec. 1:10-12.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal and is
reproduced below with the disputed limitation emphasized in italics'.
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving a query image;
generating a representation of the query image;
identifying multiple image clusters that correspond to the
query image;
identifying multiple image search servers that correspond
to the multiple image clusters that correspond to the query image;
sending the representation of the query image to each of
the multiple image search servers that correspond to the multiple
image clusters that correspond to the query image;
receiving, from each of the multiple image search servers
that correspond to the multiple image clusters that correspond to
the query image, data representing one or more result images;
ranking the result images that are received from the
multiple image search servers that correspond to the multiple
image clusters that correspond to the query image; and
providing the ranked result images in response to the
query image.
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Appeal 2016-006021
Application 13/570,435
The Examiner’s Rejections
1. Claims 1, 37, 38, 59-61, and 70 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as being anticipated by Gulli et al. (US 2007/0078846 Al; Apr. 5,
2007) (“Gulli”). Final Act. 3-6.
2. Claims 41^45, 47-50, 52-56, 58, 63-67, and 69 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gulli and Liu et al. (US
7,539,657 Bl; May 26, 2009) (“Liu”). Final Act. 7-20.
3. Claims 46, 57, and 68 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Gulli, Liu, and Li et al. (US 7,941,442 B2;
May 10, 2011) (“Li”). Final Act. 20-25.
Issue on Appeal2
Did the Examiner err in finding Gulli discloses providing ranked
result images in response to a “query image,” as recited in claim 1 and as
commensurately recited in independent claims 48 and 59?
ANALYSIS3
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
Appellant argues that, rather than providing ranked result images in
response to a query image, Gulli provides images in response to an image
2 We only address this issue, which is dispositive. We do not address other
issues raised by Appellant’s arguments.
3 Throughout this Decision, we have considered the Appeal Brief, filed
October 6, 2015 (“App. Br.”); the Reply Brief, filed May 10, 2016 (“Reply
Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer, mailed April 6, 2016 (“Ans.”); and the Final
Office Action, mailed May 26, 2015 (“Final Act.”), from which this Appeal
is taken.
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Appeal 2016-006021
Application 13/570,435
search term. App. Br. 4 (citing Gulli TJ 30); Reply Br. 1-2. Accordingly,
Appellant contends the Examiner erred in finding Gulli anticipates, inter
alia, independent claims 1 and 59. App. Br. 4.
Gulli is generally directed to determining near duplicate images
within a set of images. Gulli, Abstract. Gulli discloses a process wherein a
set of images may be partitioned across a plurality of servers. Gulli ^ 52,
Fig. 7. Each server may extract certain features from the images and
determine whether the images have similar features. Gulli 52-53.
Further, clusters of similar images may be built with a representative image
(i.e., a witness of the cluster) selected. Gulli ^ 54. Witness images may be
compared to detect similarity and clusters having similar witness images
may be merged. Gulli 55. Gulli discloses the use of image similarity
detection may be used to reduce the number of images displayed by a search
engine. Gulli ^ 60.
However, contrary to the Examiner’s findings (see, e.g., Final Act. 3-
4; Ans. 2-3), Gulli describes the set of images “may be received, for
instance, as a result of searching an image index using a search term
provided by a user.” Gulli ^ 30. In other words, rather than providing result
images determined to be similar to a query image, Gulli receives a set of
images in response to a search term and performs a similarity detection to
reduce the number of resulting images. Additionally, we disagree with the
Examiner that Figures 10 and 11 of Gulli describe returning a set of images
in response to a query image. See Ans. 2-3 (citing Gulli 21-22, Figs. 10,
11). Gulli describes the results (i.e., images of intersecting lines) to be in
response “to a search query.” Gulli 21-22.
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Appeal 2016-006021
Application 13/570,435
For the reasons discussed supra, we are persuaded of Examiner error.
Accordingly, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
of independent claims 1 and 59. For similar reasons, we also reverse the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 37, 38, 60, 61, and 70, which depend
therefrom.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
Similar to independent claims 1 and 59, independent claim 48 also
recites, inter alia, receiving a query image and providing ranked result
images in response to the query image. Although claim 48 is rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Gulli and Liu, the Examiner relies on the same
findings from Gulli for these limitations as those relied upon in rejecting
independent claims 1 and 59. That is, the Examiner does not rely on the
combined teachings and suggestions of Gulli and Liu to show the use of a
query image. Accordingly, for similar reasons to those discussed with
respect to independent claims 1 and 59, we do not sustain the Examiner’s
rejection of independent claim 48. Further, we do not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 41^45, 47, 49, 50, 52-56, 58, 63-67, and 69,
which depend directly or indirectly from one of claims 1, 48, or 59.
Additionally, in rejecting dependent claims 46, 57, and 68, the
Examiner does not rely on the combined teachings and suggestions of Gulli,
Liu, and Li to show the use of a query image. Thus, for similar reasons, we
do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 46, 57, and 68.
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Appeal 2016-006021
Application 13/570,435
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 37, 38, 41-50,
52-61, and 63-70.
REVERSED
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