Ex Parte CronaDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 6, 201914321691 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 6, 2019) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/321,691 07/01/2014 68242 7590 05/08/2019 FIALA & WEA VER P.L.L.C. C/0 CPA GLOBAL 900 Second A venue South Suite 600 MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Bjorn Crona 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. H04.0003USOO 6978 EXAMINER BILLAH, MASUM ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2486 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/08/2019 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): DOCKETING@CPAGLOBAL.COM docketing@fwiplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BJORN CRONA Appeal2018-006158 Application 14/321,691 1 Technology Center 2400 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, ERIC B. CHEN, and DAVID J. CUTITTA II, Administrative Patent Judges. CUTITTA, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-15, which are all the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We REVERSE. 1 Kapsch TrafficCom AB ("Appellant") is the applicant, as provided for under 3 7 C.F .R. § 1.46, and is also identified in the Brief as the real party in interest. See Appeal Br. 1. Appeal2018-006158 Application 14/321,691 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Invention Appellant's invention relates to "identifying contamination upon a lens of a stereoscopic camera" by "comparing historical image data collected from a number of previously captured images." Spec. ,r,r 7, 12. 2 Illustrative Claim Claims 1 and 15 are independent. Claim 1 is illustrative reproduced below with limitation at issue in italics. 1. A method for identifying contamination upon a lens of a stereoscopic camera, wherein said stereoscopic camera is arranged such that a capturing area of said stereoscopic camera is predefined such that images from said stereoscopic camera have the same capturing area over time, is provided with a first camera adapted to cover said capturing area by providing first images of said capturing area, and is provided with a second camera adapted to cover said capturing area by providing second images of said capturing area, wherein said first images are divided into at least one evaluation area and said second images are divided into at least one evaluation area, wherein the respective evaluation area of said first and said second images are 2 Our Decision refers to: (1) Appellant's Specification filed July 1, 2014 ("Spec."); (2) the Final Rejection mailed May 31, 2017 ("Final Act."); (3) the Appeal Brief filed November 29, 2017 ("Appeal Br."); (4) the Examiner's Answer mailed March 22, 2018 ("Ans."); and (5) the Reply Brief filed May 22, 2018 ("Reply Br."). 2 Appeal2018-006158 Application 14/321,691 correspondently located in respective image, wherein said method comprises the steps of: forming historical image data for said evaluation areas, wherein said historical image data comprises an image parameter representing the respective evaluation area from a predetermined number of previously captured first and second images, comparing said historical image data for the evaluation area of said first image with historical image data for the evaluation area of said second image, and indicating that at least one lens of said stereoscopic camera is contaminated, if a deviation larger than a threshold value between the compared historical image data is identified. Appeal Br., Claims Appendix Al. REFERENCES AND REJECTION Claims 1-15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Mochizuki (JP 2010130549 A, pub. June 10, 2010), Fright et al. (US 2009/0213213 Al, pub. Aug. 27, 2009) ("Fright") and Davis et al. (US 2013/0223673 Al, pub. Aug. 29, 2013) ("Davis"). Final Act. 7-22. Our review in this appeal is limited to the above rejection and the issues raised by Appellant. Arguments not made in the Appeal Brief are waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(1)(iv)(2017). 3 Appeal2018-006158 Application 14/321,691 DISCUSSION Issue: Based on Appellant's arguments, the dispositive issue on appeal is whether the combination of references cited by the Examiner teaches or suggests "comparing said historical image data for the evaluation area of said first image with historical image data for the evaluation area of said second image," as recited in claim 1. The Examiner relies on Mochizuki to teach or suggest the limitation at issue. See Final Act. 7-9; Ans. 7-10. Mochizuki relates to detecting a stain on a lens of a stereoscopic camera by comparing a current or present image of the camera with a background or past image. See Mochizuki 3, 7. Specifically, to teach comparing historical image data of first and second images the Examiner alternately relies on (1) "the background image" in Mochizuki to teach both the first and second images or (2) Mochizuki's present image to teach the first image and Mochizuki' s background image to teach the second image. See Ans. 5 (regarding (2): "the loop repeatedly compares present/ current image ( Appellant defined first image) with background image (Appellant defined second image) which also indicates that Mochizuki does uses historical data to compare"). Appellant argues: this second argument of the Examiner's Answer completely contradicts the first argument of the Examiner's Answer. That is, the Examiner's Answer states that the background image (past image) of Mochizuki is the first image recited in the claims, but then on the same page states that the present/ current image of Mochizuki is the first image recited in the claims. This is an inconsistent application of the cited reference. Reply Br. 4. 4 Appeal2018-006158 Application 14/321,691 Appellant continues by arguing that under either of the Examiner's interpretations of Mochizuki the reference Id. fails to teach or suggest the comparison of historical image data to historical image data as in the pending claims at least because either (1) a present/current image is not historical data, or (2) Mochizuki does not compare historical data of one camera (i.e., of first images from a first camera) to historical data of another camera (i.e., of second images from a second camera). We find Appellant's arguments persuasive. Appellant's claim requires comparing historical image data of a first image provided by a first camera with historical image data of a second image provided by a second camera. With respect to Appellant's second argument, we agree that the Examiner has not shown that Mochizuki teaches comparing historical data of a first camera to historical data of a second camera because the Examiner has not shown that Mochizuki compares background images obtained from two different cameras. To the contrary, Mochizuki discusses a single stored background image. See Mochizuki 7. We also find persuasive Appellant's first argument that Mochizuki's present/ current image does not teach or suggest historical image data, as claimed. Although we agree with the Examiner's finding that Mochizuki repeatedly compares "present/current image (Appellant defined first image) with [ a single] background image ( Appellant defined second image)" (Ans. 5), the Examiner has not sufficiently demonstrated that Mochizuki's present/current image teaches historical image data, particularly in view of the Examiner's finding that Mochizuki' s background image teaches the claimed historical data. 5 Appeal2018-006158 Application 14/321,691 Because we agree with at least one of the dispositive arguments advanced by Appellant for claim 1, we need not reach the merits of Appellant's other contentions. Accordingly, on this record, we do not sustain the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claim 1 over Mochizuki, Fright and Davis. We also do not sustain the rejection of independent claim 15, which recites limitations commensurate in scope to claim 1, or of dependent claims 2-14, which depend from independent claim 1. DECISION We reverse the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. REVERSED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation