Ex Parte CHOI et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 29, 2017

13110501 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 29, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
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P.O.Box 1450
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/110,501 05/18/2011 Sung-wook CHOI Q122570 3590
23373 7590 03/31/2017
SUGHRUE MION, PLLC
2100 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, N.W.
SUITE 800
WASHINGTON, DC 20037
EXAMINER
JOSEPH, SHAWN S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2176
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/31/2017 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
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SUNG-WOOK CHOI, KYUNG-JOO SUH,
YONG-DEOK KIM, and HYE-JEONG LEE
Appeal 2014-000815
Application 13/110,5011
Technology Center 2100
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., J. JOHN LEE, and
SHARON FENICK, Administrative Patent Judges.
FENICK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final
Rejection of claims 1—24. (Appeal Br. 4.) We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b)(1).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO.,
party in interest. (Appeal Br. 2.)
LTD. as the real
Appeal 2014-000815
Application 13/110,501
Invention
Appellants’ invention relates to presenting a web page to a user on a
display apparatus. The web page is divided into a plurality of first blocks
that may be individually displayed on the display apparatus. At least one of
the first blocks is divided into a plurality of second blocks, such that the size
of the plurality of second blocks is less than the size of a screen of the
display apparatus. (Spec. Tflf 6—12, Abstract.)
Exemplary Claim
Claim 1, reproduced below, is exemplary:
1. A display apparatus comprising:
an input unit which receives a web page;
an image processor which processes the web page for
display;
a display unit which displays the processed web page;
a receiving unit which receives an instruction of a user
for browsing the web page; and
a controller which divides the web page into a plurality
of first blocks to browse the web page by displaying at least one
of the first blocks on the display unit,
wherein the controller divides the web page into the
plurality of first blocks using a structure of the web page,
wherein the controller divides at least one of the plurality
of first blocks into a plurality of second blocks, the at least one
of the plurality of first blocks having a size greater than a
reference size; and
wherein the reference size corresponds to a display of the
display unit.
Rejections
The Examiner provisionally rejects claims 1 and 13 on the ground of
nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as not patentably distinct
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Application 13/110,501
from claims 1 and 11 of copending application 13/110,429. (Final Action 2—
4.)
The Examiner rejects claims 1—3, 5, 11—15, 17, 23, and 24 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Admitted Prior Art (Spec. 2-4),
Berger et al. (US 2005/0195221 Al; pub. Sept. 8, 2005) (“Berger”) and
Deng Cai, et al. VIPS: a Vision-based Page Segmentation Algorithm,
Microsoft Research Technical Report MSR-TR-2003-79 (Nov. 1, 2003),
(“Cai”). (Final Action 4—11).
The Examiner rejects claims 4, 6—10, 16, and 18—22 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Admitted Prior Art, Berger, Cai, and Shumeet
Baluja, Browsing on Small Screens: Recasting Web-Page Segmentation into
an Efficient Machine Learning Framework, Proceedings of the 15th
International Conference on World Wide Web, 33—42 (2006), (“Baluja”).
(Final Action 11—18).
Issue
Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Admitted
Prior Art, Berger, and Cai teaches or suggests the division of “at least one of
the plurality of first blocks into a plurality of second blocks, the at least one
of the plurality of first blocks having a size greater than a reference size,” as
recited in claims 1 and 13?
ANALYSIS
As an initial matter, we note that Appellants do not address or argue
the double patenting rejection. (See generally Appeal Br. 4, 8—13.) Thus,
we summarily affirm the double patenting rejection of claims 1—17, 19, and
20. See Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) § 1205.02, 9th ed.,
Rev. 11, 2013 (Nov. 2015) (“If a ground of rejection stated by the examiner
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Application 13/110,501
is not addressed in the appellant’s brief, appellant has waived any challenge
to that ground of rejection and the Board may summarily sustain it”).
Claim 1 recites the division of a web page into a plurality of first
blocks, and the division of at least one of these first blocks, having a size
greater than a reference size, into a plurality of second blocks. The
Examiner finds that Berger teaches the division of a web page into discrete
segments and regions that can be selected for display. (Final Action 6—7,
citing Berger || 55—56.) Additionally, the Examiner finds that Cai teaches
the division of a web page, taking into account the structure of the web page,
and the division of first blocks into second blocks. (Final Action 7—8.)
Appellants argue that Cai contains no teaching or suggestion
regarding the size of the original example page in Cai (“Yahoo Shopping”
page) or the size of the blocks into which Cai divides that page (VB1, VB2,
. . .), and, thus, cannot be used to teach or suggest an element with a size
greater than a reference size. {Id. at 12.) Appellant argues: “Cai merely
teaches that the web page is divided into blocks, with no apparent concern
with whether the original web page has a size greater than a reference
size.” (Appeal Br. 11—13.)
However, Appellants do not address the Examiner’s findings
regarding the teachings of Berger with respect to a reference size. The
Examiner explains in the Advisory Action:
It appears that Applicant specifically attacks Cai as not
teaching “a size greater than a reference size”.
Examiner notes that, originally cited, is Berger as
teaching the element “a reference size”. While Applicant
ignores the given reference in argument, it is important to note
that Berger introduces that a raster minipage image of the
original web page is generated and scaled to fit the dimension
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Application 13/110,501
(Advisory Action 2.)
The Examiner finds that Berger teaches that the original webpage, if it
exceeds the size of the user’s display, is used to create a minipage with
segmentation into blocks more usable in the original display. (Answer 24.)
Thus, Examiner finds that the combination of the prior art, not merely Cai, is
relied on as teaching or suggesting the disputed limitation. (Answer 24—25.)
We agree with the Examiner (Answer. 23—24) that the failure of the
Appellants to address Berger or the combination including Berger as
presented by the Examiner amounts to the attack on one reference (Cai)
individually while ignoring the combination of references applied. See In re
Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (Fed. Cir. 1986.)
Therefore, we are not persuaded by Appellants arguments of error in
the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 and claim 13, argued together, and
claims 2, 3, 5, 11—15, 17, 23, and 24, argued on the same basis (Appeal Br.
13)2. With respect to claims 4, 6—10, 16, and 18—22, Appellants add that
Baluja does not remedy the asserted deficiency in the Examiner’s rejection.
(Id.) As discussed supra, however, no such deficiency exists, and therefore
we are not persuaded of error in the rejection of these claims.
DECISION
The Examiner’s nonstatutory double patenting rejection of claims 1
and 13 is affirmed.
The Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 1—24 is
affirmed.
2 While claim 11 is not listed in the Appellants’ Appeal Brief, we assume
that the error is typographical and treat this claim as if it were argued with
the other dependent claims rejected by the same combination of art.
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Application 13/110,501
Pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv), no time period for taking any
subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended.
AFFIRMED
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