Ex Parte Hendrey et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 24, 2016

11706065 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 24, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
111706,065 02/13/2007
131639 7590 02/26/2016
Uber/FENWICK
801 California Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Geoffrey Hendrey
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.
20662-12204 8204
EXAMINER
PERROMAT, CARLOS
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2611
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/26/2016 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):
ptoc@fenwick.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GEOFFREY HENDREY and BRENT HAMBY
Appeal2014-003829 1
Application 11/706,065
Technology Center 2600
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, NORMAN H. BEAMER,
and ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
rejection of claims 3-11, 13, and 15-20.2 Claims 1-2, 12, and 14 are
cancelled. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 An oral hearing was held February 16, 2016.
2 In the Appeal Brief Appellants identify deCarta, Inc. as the real party in
interest. (App. Br. 1.) The record indicates Uber Technologies Inc.
currently is assignee of the subject application. (Statement (filed May 27,
2015.)
Appeal2014-003829
Application 11/706,065
THE INVENTION
Appellants' invention is directed to dynamically generating map tiles
based on a tile grid. (Abstract.) Claim 3, reproduced below, is illustrative of
the claimed subject matter:
3. A computer-implemented method for rendering tiles in a
digital map, the method comprising:
receiving, by a computer, a request for a tile grid, the request
for the tile grid specifying a width and height for each tile
in the grid, a location, a bounding area, and a number of
columns and rows for the requested tile grid;
generating, by the computer, a tile grid in response to the
request, the tile grid centered at the received location and
including indicia of a plurality of tiles having the
specified width and height, and forming the specified
numbers of columns and rows;
determining, by the computer, a position of a seed tile within
the tile grid and a resource identifier for the seed tile;
for each additional tile within the tile grid, determining, by the
computer, an offset of the tile position relative to the seed
tile and a resource identifier including the offset;
providing, by the computer to the requester, the generated tile
grid, including the resource identifier for each tile within
the grid;
receiving, by the computer, a request for a tile, the request
including one of the resource identifiers;
rendering, by the computer in response to the request for the
tile, the tile identified by the resource identifier; and
providing the rendered tile to the requester.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 3-11, 13, and 15-20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Rasmussen et al. (US 2005/0270299 Al,
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Appeal2014-003829
Application 11/706,065
pub. Dec. 8, 2005) (hereinafter "Rasmussen"), Kenyon (US 2002/0067374
Al, pub. June 6, 2002), Radbum et al. (US 2004/0217980 Al, Nov. 4, 2004)
(hereinafter "Radbum"), Pallister (US 2006/0072831 Al, pub. Apr. 6, 2006),
and Furlan et al. (US 6,466,254 Bl, issued Oct. 15, 2002) (hereinafter
"Furlan"). (Final Act. 6-17.)
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
issue: 3
Whether the combination of the cited references teaches or suggests
the limitations of independent claims 3, 17, and 20. (App. Br. 4--9.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants'
arguments: 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. 6-17) and
(2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in
response to Appellants' Appeal Brief (Ans. 2-8), and we concur with the
conclusions reached by the Examiner. We emphasize the following.
Appellants argue "Rasmussen does not contain any teaching of or
notion of the claimed tile grid (as opposed to actual rendered map tiles)
required by each of applicants'[ sic] independent claims 3, 17 and 20." (App.
3 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Oct. 30, 2013), Reply Brief
(filed Feb. 19, 2014), Final Office Action (mailed Jan. 3, 2013), and the
Examiner's Answer (mailed Dec. 17, 2013) for the respective details.
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Appeal2014-003829
Application 11/706,065
Br. 5.) Appellants posit similar arguments distinguishing Kenyon. (App.
Br. 6-7.) However, the term "tile grid," under the broadest reasonable
interpretation of that phrase, encompasses the pre-rendered grid of tiles
disclosed in Rasmussen and Kenyon. (Final Act. 6-8; Rasmussen i-fi-f l 0, 11,
39, 41, 49; Kenyon Fig. 7, i-fi-f 11, 13, 40, 45.) This is confirmed by
Appellants' description of the prior art pre-rendered tile approach in the
Specification: "Pre-rendered maps are created by pre-rendering a typically
very large image ... divided into sets of even smaller images known as tiles .
. . . [T]he center of a tile grid is predetermined .... " (Spec. i1 4) (Emphasis
added).
Focusing on the claim requirement that the tile grid request includes
"width and height for each tile ... a location, a bounding area, and a number
of columns and rows," Appellants argue "[b ]ecause Rasmussen does not
contemplate receiving such a request [for a tile grid], it follows that
Rasmussen does not disclose 'generating [a tile grid]."' (App. Br. 5.)
Appellants likewise distinguish Kenyon. (App. Br. 6.) This argument is
unpersuasive given that the Examiner relies on the teachings of Radbum and
Furlan as well as on Rasmussen and Kenyon, which taken together at least
teach or suggest the claimed request and generation of tile grids, as that term
is reasonably broadly defined. (Final Act. 6-9, 11; Ans. 3-5; Rasmussen i-fi-1
10, 11, 13, 32, 33, 39--43; Kenyon i-fi-f 11-13; Radbum Fig. 28, i1240; Furlan
col. 7, 11. 27-50.)
Appellants further argue "Rasmussen's maps are not inherently
centered on a specific, desired location," and "[a]s with Rasmussen, Kenyon
fails to disclose a tile grid centered at a requested location. (App. Br. 5, 6.)
However, the Examiner correctly finds that Kenyon teaches or suggests the
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Appeal2014-003829
Application 11/706,065
claimed "tile grid centered at the received location." (Final Act. 7; Kenyon
i-f 42 ("the zip code from the address is used to determine which map tile of
the plurality of preexisting map tiles is to be sent to the client 580 as the
central map tile.") Appellants' argument attempting to distinguish Kenyon
based on the fact that the specific location of a target may be near the edge
of the central tile is not persuasive, because the claim language - "centered
at the received location" - as reasonably interpreted, does not exclude such
scenarios. (Final Act. 7.) This is confirmed by the fact that a disclosed
embodiment places the location at the edge of the central, seed tile when an
even number of tiles make up a row. (Spec. Fig. 4; i-f 25.)
Appellants argue "Rasmussen strenuously teaches away from
dynamic rendering and actually distinguishes his invention over such
'wasteful' prior art techniques," and likewise distinguish Kenyon based on
its use of pre-rendered tiles. (App. Br. 5---6, 8.) We disagree. The Examiner
properly relies on the combination of cited art, which taken together teaches
or suggests the claimed subject matter, and properly overcomes the
argument that the discussion in Rasmussen and Kenyon of the disadvantages
of dynamic rendering of tiles teaches away from the cited combination:
First, neither Rasmussen nor Kenyon ever discusses the
suitability of dynamically rendering tiles of an image to be
provided by a server to a client, and therefore ever teaches away
from that embodiment, at best criticizing the dynamic rendering
of entire images. Second, Rasmussen and Kenyon explicitly
describe that dynamic rendering of full images is inefficient and
causes latency. This however does not amount to teaching that
dynamic rendering cannot be implemented. Indeed, it is quite
the opposite, since both teach that this is done in the art.
(Ans. 5---6.)
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Appeal2014-003829
Application 11/706,065
The Examiner responds to Appellants' further arguments regarding
Radbum, Pallister, and Furlan by characterizing such contentions as arguing
the references individually, whereas the rejection is based on the
combination of the cited references. (Ans. 2.) We agree. See In re Keller,
642 F .2d 413 (CCP A 1981 ); In re Merck & Co., 800 F .2d 1091 (Fed.
Cir.1986). The Examiner correctly finds that Radbum teaches or suggests
the claimed determinations of offset tile positions, as well as dynamic
rendering of tiles from stored vector data. (Final Act. 8-9; Ans. 3, 5;
Radbum Fig. 28, i-fi-15, 9, 86, 87, 218, 240.) The Examiner also correctly
finds that Pallister teaches or suggest dynamic rendering of tiles, and serves
to further counter the proposition that Rasmussen or Kenyon teach away
from the combination on which the Examiner relies. (Final Act. 10; Ans. 3,
5-7.)
In sum, we are not persuaded that the Examiner errs in finding that the
combination of cited references teaches or suggests the claim limitations at
issue.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons discussed above, we sustain the obviousness rejection
of independent claims 3, 17, and 20. We also sustain the obviousness
rejection of claims 3-11, 13, and 15-20, which are not argued separately.
(App. Br. 9.)
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Appeal2014-003829
Application 11/706,065
DECISION
The Examiner's rejection of claims 3-11, 13, and 15-20 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
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