Ex Parte Crotty et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 27, 201711903466 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 27, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 11/903,466 09/21/2007 Teresa Crotty 58083-855224 (B556) 8955 72058 7590 03/01/2017 Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP Adobe Systems, Inc. 58083 Mailstop: IP Docketing - 22 1100 Peachtree Street, Suite 2800 Atlanta, GA 30309-4530 EXAMINER HASTY, NICHOLAS ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2178 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/01/2017 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 following e-mail address(es): ipefiling @ kilpatrickstockton .com jlhice@kilpatrick.foundationip.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte TERESA CROTTY, MARK DAHM, T. TODD DONAHUE, DAVID RAU, and DELMER R. SCHNEIDER, JR. Appeal 2016-001792 Application 11/903,466 Technology Center 2100 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., JON M. JURGOVAN, and JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judges. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—3, 5—17, 19—22, and 24—31. Claims 4, 18, and 23 have been canceled. See App. Br. 17, 20-21 (Claims App.). We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Adobe Systems Incorporated. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2016-001792 Application 11/903,466 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants ’ Invention Appellants’ invention generally relates to guided edits for images and/or video. Spec., Title. A guided edit permits a user, such as a novice user, to perform a task or change associated with visual data without necessarily having to know a preferred or proper sequence of steps for performing the task or change. Spec. 128. Claim 1, which is illustrative, reads as follows: 1. A method, comprising: receiving a selection of visual data on which an edit is to be performed using an application; obtaining information associated with the edit to be performed, the information including a description and a control; obtaining parameter values used with a sequence of previous edits to the visual data; simultaneously displaying, in a visual data display including a guided edit interface, the visual data, the description, the control, and at least one of the parameter values; receiving, via the control, an indication to perform the edit; performing the edit on the visual data to produce edited visual data; and displaying the edited visual data. Rejections Claims 1—3, 5—17, 19—22, 24, 25, and 29—31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Hasegawa et al. (US 6,333,752 Bl; issued Dec. 25, 2001) (“Hasegawa”), Cohen et al. (US 2 Appeal 2016-001792 Application 11/903,466 7,024,658 Bl; issued Apr. 4, 2006) (“Cohen”), and Baca et al. (US 2006/0053126 Al; published Mar. 9, 2006) (“Baca”). Final Act. 3—9. Claims 26—28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Hasegawa, Cohen, Baca, and Stack (US 5,815,717; issued Sept. 29, 1998). Final Act. 10. ANALYSIS § 103(a) Rejection of Claims 1—3, 5—17, 19—22, 24, 25, and 29—31 Appellants argue independent claims 1,16, and 21 together as a group and set forth no independent arguments with respect to dependent claims 2, 3, 5-15, 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, and 29-31. App. Br. 8-14; Reply Br. 2-7. We select claim 1 as representative. Accordingly, claims 2, 3, 5—17, 19—22, 24, 25, and 29—31 stand or fall with claim 1. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). Issue 1: Did the Examiner err by finding the combination of Hasegawa, Cohen, and Baca teaches or suggests “obtaining information associated with the edit to be performed, the information including a description and a control,” as recited in claim 1? Appellants contend Cohen, upon which the Examiner relies, fails to teach or suggest the disputed limitation because “Cohen does not suggest that creating a recipe indicating ‘how to accomplish a task’ with a link for retrieving a ‘help file’ includes obtaining a description and a control for the operation to be performed.” App. Br. 11; see also Reply Br. 2—3. Cohen is directed to “a help facility for a computer software application.” Cohen 1:6—7. Cohen teaches that the help facility can be used with an image editing application and includes recipes or sets of instructions 3 Appeal 2016-001792 Application 11/903,466 that may be followed by a user to learn how to accomplish a task in the application. Cohen 3:30-35. Cohen teaches that a recipe “may include not only instructional content such as text that can be read by a user, but also interactive links that, when selected or otherwise activated, may cause an operation to be performed in the application.” Cohen 3:35—38. The Examiner finds the instructional content as corresponding to the claimed “description” and the interactive links as corresponding to the claimed “control” (Final Act. 4), which is reasonable and consistent with Appellants’ Specification (Spec. 139 (providing an example of a static description as “the text ‘A crop box has been drawn on your photo . . and describing a control as “a tool (e.g., an eyedropper tool, an eraser tool, a brush tool, etc.), a button, a slider, a box for entering numerical values or strings, a radio button, a checkbox, or any other user interface control”)). Cohen teaches that the instructional content and interactive links are retrieved when a user selects a recipe from a drop down menu of the image editing application. Cohen 6:3—14. Cohen, therefore, teaches or suggests “obtaining information associated with the edit to be performed, the information including a description and a control,” as recited in claim 1. Issue 2: Did the Examiner err by finding the combination of Hasegawa, Cohen, and Baca teaches or suggests “obtaining parameter values used with a sequence of previous edits to the visual data,” as recited in claim 1? Appellants contend the combination of Hasegawa, Cohen, and Baca fails to teach or suggest the disputed limitation because Cohen and Baca “are silent regarding obtaining ‘parameter values used with a sequence of previous edits to the visual data,’” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 10. 4 Appeal 2016-001792 Application 11/903,466 Appellants contend Cohen fails to teach or suggest the disputed limitation because: In contrast to “obtaining a parameter value used with a previous edit to the visual data” as claimed, Cohen seeks to determine whether a state of an application is proper to perform an operation (e.g., an operation to be performed). . . . Cohen presents “Do it for me” buttons that are links corresponding to steps of a recipe. . . . However, such buttons do not convey any parameter values. Cohen’s help facility does not obtain or display parameter values for a sequence of previous edits to the same image data/file that was already edited. The help facility in Cohen does not display parameter values for a sequence of previously performed edits on the image data. App. Br. 11 (citing Cohen 8:2—6; 6:15—18); see also Reply Br. 2—3. Appellants contend Baca fails to teach or suggest the disputed limitation because “Baca merely suggests editing individual action attributes to simulate a previously performed action’s effect” and “Baca’s interface for editing action attributes does not display the visual data or any description or controls for an edit to be performed on the visual data.” App. Br. 11 (citing Baca, Fig. 8B; | 50); Reply Br. 4. According to Appellants, “[t]he actions of Baca (see, e.g., elements 802, 803, 804, 805, and 810 in FIG. 8B) are individual entries in a ‘stack of actions’ in a ‘History Manager.’” Id. Appellants contend “[s]uch a stack of actions does not teach or suggest obtaining and displaying ‘parameter values used with a sequence of previous edits to the visual data,’ let alone ‘simultaneously displaying, in a visual data display including a guided edit interface, the visual data, the description, the control, and at least one of the parameter values,”’ as required by claim 1. App. Br. 12 (emphases omitted). Appellants’ contentions regarding the teachings of Cohen are not persuasive because the Examiner relies on Baca, not Cohen for teaching or 5 Appeal 2016-001792 Application 11/903,466 suggesting the disputed limitation. We are also not persuaded by Appellants’ contentions regarding the teachings of Baca. Baca is directed to a History Manager that provides a user with “a completely modifiable history of a given data set from the creation of the data set to the current moment.” Baca 1 8. Baca teaches that the History Manager can be applied to an individual data item, such as an image, or sets of data items. Id. Baca teaches that after the initial rendering of a data item (e.g., an image), “the user enters 303 into an editing loop, in which the user performs edits (‘actions’) on the file 304.” Baca 144 (emphases omitted). Baca teaches that when the user is finished editing, the user has the option of saving the action history (e.g., the series of actions or edits performed on the data item). As found by the Examiner (Final Act. 4), Baca teaches that the History Manager allows the user to view and edit the actions, including the attributes thereof, previously performed on the data item (Baca, Fig. 8B (labeled “FIG. 8B Edit Action Attributes” and depicting “attribute 1” and “attribute 2” for “Action 02”); | 50 (“In FIG. [8B] the user has opened the attributes 807[, ]808 of Action 2803 in order to edit them” (emphases omitted)). As such, Baca teaches or suggests “obtaining parameter values used with a sequence of previous edits to the visual data,” as recited in claim 1. Appellants’ contentions regarding Baca failing to teach displaying the visual data, descriptions, and controls (App. Br. 11) is not persuasive because the Examiner relies on Hasegawa, not Baca, for teaching or suggesting these limitations (Final Act. 3). 6 Appeal 2016-001792 Application 11/903,466 Issue 3: Did the Examiner err by finding the combination of Hasegawa, Cohen, and Baca teaches or suggests “simultaneously displaying, in a visual data display including a guided edit interface, the visual data, the description, the control, and at least one of the parameter values,” as recited in claim 1? Appellants contend the combination of Hasegawa, Cohen, and Baca fails to teach or suggest the disputed limitation because: In contrast to obtaining “parameter values used with a sequence of previous edits to the visual data” as claimed, FIG. 12 of Hasegawa shows that “a parameter concerning current chroma is set in a horizontal-axis parameter setting frame 1201, and a parameter concerning hue is set in a vertical-axis parameter setting frame 1202.” .... Hasegawa does not teach or suggest that a parameter “concerning current chroma” or hue that is currently being set is a parameter value used when chroma or hue was previously changed. FIG. 12 of Hasegawa shows that “a parameter concerning current chroma is set in a horizontal- axis parameter setting frame 1201, and a parameter concerning hue is set in a vertical-axis parameter setting frame 1202.” .... Hasegawa does not disclose that such parameters “concerning current chroma” and hue that are being set were values used with a sequence of previous changes to chroma or hue. Instead, Hasegawa discloses setting a current parameter (e.g., a parameter for a current chroma or hue). Hasegawa does not teach or suggest that such a “parameter concerning current chroma” is a value used when chroma was previously changed. App. Br. 9 (citing Hasegawa, Figs. 9, 12; 14:48—67; 17:48—55); see also Reply Br. 2. Appellants further contend “Hasegawa does not display parameter values for a sequence of previous edits.” App. Br. 10. According to Appellants, Hasegawa, instead, teaches displaying a slider with a most recent edit. Id. (citing Hasegawa, Fig. 9); Reply Br. 4. Appellants contend 7 Appeal 2016-001792 Application 11/903,466 “Hasegawa’s slider element does not depict any parameter values” and “Hasegawa shows a last, most recent edit only.” Id. We do not find Appellants’ contentions persuasive. The Examiner finds, and we agree, Hasegawa teaches simultaneously displaying, in a visual data display including a guided image interface, the visual data, the description, the control, and a parameter. Final Act. 3 (citing Hasegawa, Fig. 9; 14:48—67). As discussed supra, the Examiner finds, and we agree, Cohen teaches “obtaining information associated with the edit to be performed, the information including a description and a control” and finds Baca teaches “obtaining parameter values used with a sequence of previous edits to the visual data.” The Examiner further finds, and we agree, Cohen teaches displaying the edited visual data. Final Act. 4 (citing Cohen, Fig. 3D; 6:38-40). Based on these findings, the Examiner concludes the combination of Hasegawa, Cohen, and Baca teach or suggest the claimed “simultaneously displaying.” Id. Appellants’ contentions fail to address the combined teachings of the references and, therefore, are unpersuasive of error. In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Issue 4: Did the Examiner err in combining Reeves, Cohen, and Baca? Appellants contend the combination of Reeves, Cohen, and Baca is improper. App. Br. 12—14; Reply Br. 5—7. In particular, Appellants contend: Nothing in the cited portions of the references supports the Office Action’s statement that it “would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to have combined the editing method of Hasegawa et al. with the selection method of Cohen et al. in order to find information about [a] selected edit.” .... Similarly, nothing in the references 8 Appeal 2016-001792 Application 11/903,466 supports the statement that “[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to have combined the editing method of Hasegawa et al. with the history editing method of Baca et al. in order to arbitrarily modify and rearrange actions.” .... Without a rational underpinning in support thereof, articulated reasoning that asserts obviousness is improper. As such, these statements are conclusory, which is improper. App. Br. 12—13 (citing Final Act. 4). Appellants further contend the Examiner fails to provide any specific evidence or reasoning as to why any of the references would have suggested the limitations discussed supra to one or ordinary skill in the art. App. Br. 13. Appellants also contend the Examiner’s stated reasons for combing the teachings of the references is inadequate because the Examiner: does not indicate why, at the time of Appellants’] claimed invention was made, one skilled in [the] art would have considered modifying Hasegawa’s apparatus for carrying out edits to an image using current parameters to incorporate Baca’s History Manager for displaying actions in “the history list” that “have been applied to the file.” App. Br. 13—14; see also Reply Br. 5. Appellants contend the Examiner “fails to explain why one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention would have combined Cohen’s help facility that teaches a user how to perform an action with Baca’s History Manager that is concerned with actions that have already been performed.” Reply Br. 6. We do not find Appellants’ contentions persuasive. The Examiner finds “[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to have combined the editing method of Hasegawa et al. with the selection method of Cohen et al. in order to find information about selected edit.” Final Act. 4 (citing Cohen 1:41—56). The Examiner 9 Appeal 2016-001792 Application 11/903,466 further finds “[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to have combined the editing method of Hasegawa et al. with the history editing method of Baca et al. in order to arbitrarily modify and rearrange actions.” Id. (citing Baca 5). As such, the Examiner has provided some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness. KSR Int 7 Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). We are not persuaded by Appellants’ contentions regarding impermissible hindsight because the Examiner’s rejection takes into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made, and does not include knowledge gleaned only from Appellants’ disclosure. See Final Act. 4 (citing Cohen 1:41—56; Baca 1 5). Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in combining Hasegawa, Cohen, and Baca. For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 and claims 2, 3, 5—17, 19—22, 24, 25, and 29—31, which fall therewith. § 103(a) Rejection of Claims 26—28 Claims 26—28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Hasegawa, Cohen, Baca, and Stack. Final Act. 10. Appellants contend Stack does not cure the deficiencies in Hasegawa, Cohen, and Baca. See App. Br. 14—15. Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 26—28 for the reasons discussed supra with respect to claim 1. 10 Appeal 2016-001792 Application 11/903,466 DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—3, 5—17, 19—22, and 24—31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 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 11 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation