Ex Parte Baker et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 25, 201612606318 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 25, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/606,318 10/27/2009 22879 7590 02/29/2016 HP Inc, 3390 E. Harmony Road Mail Stop 35 FORT COLLINS, CO 80528-9544 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Mary Baker 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 82259429 2536 EXAMINER WOO, STELLA L ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2656 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/29/2016 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): ipa.mail@hp.com barbl@hp.com yvonne.bailey@hp.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MARY BAKER, DANIEL GEORGE GELB, and RAMIN SAMADANI Appeal2014-002689 Application 12/606,318 Technology Center 2600 Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal2014-002689 Application 12/606,318 STATE~vfENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1 and 5-20. Claims 2--4 are cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. THE INVENTION The claims are directed to audiovisual feedback to users of video conferencing applications. Spec. Title. Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method of providing feedback to a participant in a video conference, comprising the steps of: establishing a video conferencing session between multiple participants, wherein each participant in the video conferencing session is associated with a video capture device and an audio capture device; and establishing presentation requirements for each participant, wherein the presentation requirements are associated with the video conferencing session and the video capture and audio capture devices associated with each participant, wherein responsive to a failure to meet the presentation requirements, visual feedback is sent to at least a local participant who has failed to meet the presentation requirements, and wherein the visual feedback presents a distorted view to the local participant by providing a parallax effect view of remote participants indicating that the local participant has failed to meet the presentation requirements. 2 Appeal2014-002689 Application 12/606,318 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Hiroaki Vaszary Zhang Chatting us 5,786,846 US 2006/0023061 Al US 2010/0149310 Al US 7,982,762 B2 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: July 28, 1998 Feb.2,2006 June 17, 2010 July 19, 2011 Claims 1, 12-17, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Zhang and Vaszary. 1 Final Act. 2--4. Claims 5-11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Zhang, Vaszary, and Chatting. Final Act. 4--5. Claims 18 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Zhang, Vaszary, and Hiroaki. Final Act. 5. APPELLANTS' CONTENTIONS 1. Zhang's remote video image 280, although off-center and partially outside the display window, is not a distorted, parallax effect view of remote participants as required by claim 1. App. Br. 7-9. 2. Chatting's disclosure of "changing the opacity of an image based on a measured quality [] is not the same as replacing an image with a 1 Although the Examiner's Answer includes claim 18 in the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Zhang and Vaszary (Ans. 4), the Final Action instead indicates claim 18 is rejected over the combination further including Hiroaki as per claim 19 (Final Act. 5). In view of Appellants' arguments, such error is harmless for purposes of this appeal. 3 Appeal2014-002689 Application 12/606,318 different image when requirements are not met, as claimed [by claim 10]." Reply. Br. 3. 3. Because Chatting's image distortion is an alternative to the disputed parallax effect of claim 1, Chatting teaches away from the combination of references forming the basis of the rejection of claims 5-10. App. Br. 14--16. 4. Zhang and Vaszary do not teach the limitations of claim 11. App. Br. 10-11. ISSUES ON APPEAL Based on Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief (App. Br. 5-20) and Reply Brief (Reply Br. 1-3), the issues presented on appeal are whether the Examiner erred in finding the prior art teaches or suggests the limitations contested above. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants' arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants' conclusions. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 2---6) and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants' Appeal Brief (Ans. 3-8) and concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following for emphasis. In connection with contention 1, Appellants argue "Zhang describes a window that occludes or crops a portion of the remote user which is not the 4 Appeal2014-002689 Application 12/606,318 same as a distortion and a parallax effect as claimed." Reply Br. 2. The Examiner responds by pointing out Appellants' Specification describes how the "parallax effect creates an off-center view of the remote participants ... [providing] a visual cue to the local user that they also may not be properly centered or framed," which "is the same visual feedback taught by Zhang." Ans. 7, citing Spec. 8:10-20. We are unpersuaded of Examiner error. Appellants fail to provide sufficient evidence or a persuasive line of reasoning rebutting the Examiner's findings that Zhang includes a parallax effect, including an off- center view as disclosed by Appellants' Specification (p. 8, 11. 10-20). That is, Appellants do not explain why the disputed parallax effect is not equivalent to and taught by the off-center view of remote participants as depicted by Zhang's Figure 9 and disclosed at paragraph 0024. In particular, Zhang teaches how remote video 170 of a remote conferee may be displayed on a local videoconferencing display 172 to provide feedback to a local conferee 174 about his or her position in a local camera's 176 field of view. When local conferee 174 is at the edge of the camera's 176 field of view, the image of the conferee 174 is partly or fully out of view. Zhang i-f 24. As conferee 284 moves closer to the center, area 314 is substantially centered with the remote conferee. Zhang Fig. 9, i-f 41. Therefore, consistent with Appellants' Specification, this off-center view teaches or suggests the disputed parallax effect. We are also not persuaded by Appellants' argument that, because Zhang's image may also be cropped or occluded, it fails to teach a distortion via a parallax view. Reply Br. 1-2. This is because the argued limitation does not exclude a view of remote participants that is cropped or occluded 5 Appeal2014-002689 Application 12/606,318 such that, under a broad but reasonable interpretation, a parallax effect includes a view of a participant, either partially or fully displayed, that is off- centered. Thus, Appellants' argument is premised on limitations not found in the appealed claims. Furthermore, Appellants' arguments amount to little more than a naked assertion the disputed claim limitations are not found in the prior art. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) ("A statement which merely points out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for separate patentability of the claim."); In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) ("[W]e hold that the Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the prior art."). Accordingly, Appellants' contention 1 is unpersuasive of Examiner error. For the reasons supra, we sustain the rejection of independent claim 1 and independent claims 17 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), together with the rejection of dependent claims 12-16, 19, and 20, which are not separately argued.2 In connection with contention 2, Appellants argue Zhang does not teach or suggest "wherein when the presentation requirement is not met, an image of the local participant replaces the image of the remote participant that is shown when the presentation requirements are met." App. Br. 9-10. The Examiner responds Chatting, not Zhang, teaches the disputed limitation, in its rendering of a self-view image's opacity based on the measured quality of the video. Ans. 7, citing Chatting col. 21, 11. 1-14. 2 Merely restating with respect to a second claim an argument previously presented with respect to a first claim is not an argument for separate patentability of the two claims. 6 Appeal2014-002689 Application 12/606,318 Appellants' contention is unpersuasive because, inter alia, it fails to address the Examiner's findings. Chatting discloses superimposing remote and local views and applying a dynamic adjustment to the visibility of the local view based on a measure of the quality of the images. Chatting col. 21, 11. 1-14; col. 18, 11. 30-41. Chatting also describes how the opacity of the remote image may be reduced, leading to the sidetone/local image becoming more visually attentive than the remote image. Chatting col. 18, 11. 30-41. Therefore, as the quality in Chatting adjusts, so does the relative visibility of the local and remote images. We agree, in light of these teachings, it would have been obvious to cause a local image to become fully opaque, and therefore replace a remote image based on a local quality factor, as recited in claim 10. See KSR Int'!. Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007) (explaining that "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill"). Furthermore, contrary to Appellants' argument, under a broad but reasonable interpretation of the disputed limitation, the claims do not require the remote view be entirely replaced. Therefore, even if the remote view is only partially replaced with a local view based on a quality measure, the disputed claim limitation is taught or suggested by Chatting. Therefore, for these reasons, we agree with the Examiner in finding Chatting teaches the replacement of the remote view with the local view based on a quality factor as required by claim 10. In connection with contention 3, Appellants argue Chatting teaches away from providing a parallax effect view of remote participants by teaching an alternative effect in which a white pixel is replaced by a 7 Appeal2014-002689 Application 12/606,318 corresponding pixel in the sidetone image and black pixels in the remote image remain unchanged. App. Br. 14--16. Appellants' argument is unpersuasive because Appellants fail to provide sufficient evidence or argument that Chatting so disparages effects other than the disclosed image overly, including the offset image of Zhang, as to discourage the ordinary artisan from making the combination. See In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1471 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (holding that merely "express[ing] a preference" falls short of discouraging one of ordinary skill in the art from following a particular path); In re Dunn, 349 F.2d 433, 438 (CCPA 1965) (merely teaching an alternative or equivalent method does not teach away from the use of a claimed method.). Furthermore, it is the Zhang reference that discloses the parallax effect, not Chatting. Final Act. 4, Ans. 7. Appellants' argument that Chatting is silent concerning a parallax effect is unpersuasive because one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually when the rejection is based on a combination of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). Appellants' contention 3 is unpersuasive of Examiner error. We are also unpersuaded by Appellants' contention 4, arguing "Zhang, does not teach, describe or suggest 'wherein the image of the local participant is blended with the image of the remote participants,' as claimed [by claim 11]." App. Br. 10. As found by the Examiner, Chatting, not Zhang, teaches the disputed limitation. Ans. 8. For the reasons supra, Appellants' contentions of error are unpersuasive. According, we sustain the rejection of claims 5-11. DECISION 8 Appeal2014-002689 Application 12/606,318 The Examiner's decision to reject claims 1 and 5-20 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 9 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation