Ex Parte Heynen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 30, 2017

13865141 (P.T.A.B. May. 30, 2017)

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.
13/865,141 04/17/2013 Patrick O. Heynen 337722-350401/P7769USC1 6666
133036 7590 06/01/2017
DLA Piper LLP (US)
2000 University Avenue
East Palo Alto, CA 94303-2215
EXAMINER
TSENG, CHARLES
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2613
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/01/2017 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):
ApplePros Admin @ dlapiper.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte PATRICK O. HEYNEN, MICHAEL P. STERN,
ANDREW BRYANT, MARIAN E. GOLDEEN, and
WILLIAM J. FETH
Appeal 2017-000608
Application 13/865,141
Technology Center 2600
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM,
Administrative Patent Judges.
HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2017-000608
Application 13/865,141
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims
27—41 and 43^47. Claims 1—26 and 42 have been canceled. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.
The invention relates to a display adjustment control for a user
interface that differently adjusts the non-saturated pixels and saturated pixels
of the user interface (Spec. 133). For example, the invention allows a user
to adjust the brightness of dully-colored or grayscale user interface elements
differently than brightly-colored user interface elements by classifying
pixels based on color saturation values (see Spec. 3—6, 44, 51). Claims 27
and 37, reproduced below, are illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
27. A method of defining a dynamically adjustable user
interface (“UI”) of a device, the method comprising:
defining a plurality of UI elements for the UI, said UI
elements comprising a plurality of pixels;
defining a content mask for the plurality of UI elements
that distinguishes a set of content UI elements from a set of non-
content UI elements, wherein the content mask is defined by
assigning different values for the pixels of content UI elements
and non-content UI elements; and
defining a display adjustment tool for receiving a single
display adjustment parameter and in response adjusting the
appearance of the non-content UI elements without adjusting the
appearance of the content UI elements based on values for the
pixels of the content UI elements and non-content UI elements
in the content mask, the appearance of each non-content UI
element adjusted by differentiating display adjustments to a first
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set of saturated pixels from the display adjustments to a second
set of non-saturated pixels.
37. A method of adjusting display properties of a user interface
(“UI”) defined by a plurality of pixels, said method comprising:
receiving a display adjustment parameter;
classifying each pixel of a set of pixels based on a pixel saturation
value computed without using brightness;
modifying the saturation of the pixels of the set of pixels
according to the classification of the pixels;
applying a set of color correction operations to each pixel in the
set of pixels, wherein the color correction operations in the set are
applied in different amounts to different pixels based on the
classification of the pixels;
based on the display adjustment parameter, blending (i) the
pixels with the set of color correction operations applied with (ii)
original pixels prior to the modification and application of the color
correction operations.
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REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Shu US 5,517,335 May 14, 1996
Gibbs US 6,292,187 B1 Sept. 18, 2001
Rai US 6,337,692 B1 Jan. 8, 2002
Sarachik US 6,816,628 B1 Nov. 9, 2004
Iwaki US 7,092,122 B2 Aug. 15, 2006
Ikeda US 7,095,434 B1 Aug. 22, 2006
Brody US 7,184,056 B2 Feb. 27, 2007
Hirao US 7,227,990 B2 June 5, 2007
Cain US 7,242,409 B2 July 10, 2007
Alin US 7,750,947 B2 July 6, 2010
Heynen US 8,441,499 B2 May 14, 2013
Brown US 2003/0142138 A1 July 31, 2003
Kilian US 2006/0248276 A1 Nov. 2, 2006
Kumar US 2009/0217181 A1 Aug. 27, 2009
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 27—30, 34, 43, 45, and 47 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Brody, Ikeda, Gibbs, and Sarachik.
Claims 31 and 46 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Brody, Ikeda, Gibbs, Sarachik, and Iwaki.
Claim 32 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Brody, Ikeda, Gibbs, Sarachik, and Kilian.
Claim 33 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Brody, Ikeda, Gibbs, Sarachik, and Brown.
Claim 35 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Brody, Ikeda, Gibbs, Sarachik, and Kumar.
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Claim 36 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Brody, Ikeda, Gibbs, Sarachik, and Cain.
Claims 37—41 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Brody, Ikeda, Aim, Hirao, and Rai.
Claim 44 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Brody, Ikeda, Gibbs, Sarachik, Aim, and Shu.
Claims 27—32, 34, 43, and 46 stand rejected under the non-statutory
doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting over US Patent 8,441,499 to
Heynen, in view of Brody, Gibbs, and Sarachik.
Claim 37 stands rejected under the non-statutory doctrine of
obviousness-type double patenting over US Patent 8,441,499 to Heynen, in
view of Hirao, Ikeda, Ahn, and Rai.
ANALYSIS
The Obviousness Rejections
Claims 27—29, 31, 34—36, and 43—47
Appellants contend “neither of the cited masks (of either Gibbs or
Sarachik) differentiate between content and non-content UI elements, and
thus neither properly discloses or suggests the claimed limitation” of
“defining a content mask for the plurality of UI elements that distinguishes a
set of content UI elements from a set of non-content UI elements, wherein
the content mask is defined by assigning different values for the pixels of
content UI elements and non-content UI elements” (App. Br. 9—11).
Appellants also contend the Examiner failed to provide a sufficient reason to
combine Brody, Ikeda, Gibbs, and Sarachik (App. Br. 11—13). We are not
persuaded by Appellants’ arguments.
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The Examiner finds Brody describes distinguishing between content
and non-content user interface (UI) elements, but relies on Gibbs and
Sarachik for teaching the use of a “content mask” to perform the
distinguishing, where the “content mask is defined by assigning different
values for the pixels,” as recited in claim 27 (see Final Act. 11, 13—15).
Specifically, Gibbs describes using mattes, or masks, for each component of
a user interface, where “mattes define portion or portions of their associated
components that should be displayed as a solid image or as a semi­
transparent image, or as a fully transparent image (e.g., not displayed at all)”
(Gibbs, col. 6,1. 64—col. 7,1. 17). In other words, Gibbs teaches using a
mask to separately control the appearance of user interface components.
Sarachik describes representing an object in a video frame by “generat[ing] a
mask 210 which is a two-dimensional pixel array where each pixel has an
associated integer value independent of the pixels’ color or intensity value”
(Sarachik, col. 10,11. 45—52). That is, Sarachik teaches using a pixel array to
define a mask. Accordingly, it is the combination of Brody with Gibbs and
Sarachik that the Examiner finds teaches the argued feature of distinguishing
content from non-content UI elements by using a mask defined by pixel
values. Appellants do not specifically explain why Brody fails to teach the
feature of differentiating between content and non-content UI, rather
Appellants’ argument focuses only on Gibbs and Sarachik (see App. Br. 10-
11; Reply Br. 3 4). Thus, Appellants’ argument that Gibbs and Sarachik fail
to disclose differentiating between content and non-content UI elements is
not persuasive.
We are also not persuaded the Examiner erred in combining Gibbs
and Sarachik with Brody. Specifically, Appellants argue “with regard to the
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use of both Gibbs and Sarachik, the Office Action does not address that
these two references use two completely different types of masks” (App. Br.
12). Further, Appellants argue “as for the stated purpose of Sarachik,
identifying different elements within an image is not related to the claimed
invention, which does not mention images at all” (id.). However, we find
Gibbs and Sarachik both relate to using masks to define portions of a display
for performing some function on the defined portions. Accordingly, both
Gibbs and Sarachik are analogous art with respect to the claimed invention,
which uses a content mask to distinguish certain elements of a display from
other elements, as recited in claim 27. We also find one of ordinary skill in
the art would have been motivated to apply Gibbs and Sarachik’s teachings
to Brody in order to perform Brody’s adjustment of non-content UI elements
without adjusting the content UI elements in Brody’s display. In particular,
Gibbs teaches using masks to differentiate UI elements, and Sarachik
teaches masks can be defined by pixel values, and it would have been
obvious to apply Gibbs’s mask technique to Brody’s display adjustment
method, and to apply Sarachik’s technique to further refine Gibbs’s mask
technique. See KSRInt’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007)
(“[I]f 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.”).
We are, therefore, not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim
27, and claims 28, 29, 31, 34—36, and 43^47 not specifically argued
separately.
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Claim 30
Appellants contend Brody does not teach “wherein the display
adjustment tool receives the single display adjustment parameter from a
module that quantifies a change in lighting conditions in which the device
operates,” as recited in claim 30 (App. Br. 21). We agree with Appellants.
The Examiner maps Brody’s slider bar for controlling the shading of
UI elements to the claimed “module that quantifies a change in lighting
conditions in which the device operates” (Final Act. 16; Ans. 14). Brody’s
slider bar is a control by which a user inputs a display adjustment parameter,
i.e., the shading setting (see Brody, col. 3,11. 48—60). We disagree with the
Examiner’s mapping of Brody’s slider bar to the claimed “module” because
Brody’s slider bar quantifies a change the user makes to the lighting effects
shown in the display, but not a change to the lighting conditions in which the
device that contains the display operates, as recited by claim 30.
We are, therefore, constrained by the record to find the Examiner
erred in rejecting claim 30.
Claim 32
Appellants contend “it is improper to merely cite to a generic cache
monitor and indirectly associate the cache monitor to UI elements through a
JVM. Nowhere in the cited reference, or any of the other references, is there
an association of a cache monitor and monitoring non-content UI elements”
(App. Br. 22). We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument.
Appellants have not specifically explained why it would not have
been obvious to extend the benefits of a cache and cache monitor, as
described in Kilian, to the non-content UI elements that undergo display
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adjustments in the combination of Brody, Ikeda, Gibbs, and Sarachik.
Although Kilian describes using a cache and cache monitor for applications
operating in the context of a Java Virtual Machine (Kilian | 5), Kilian
discloses such applications can be a graphical user interface (Kilian 140).
Accordingly, Kilian at least suggests that a cache and cache monitor would
be useful for running a UI.
We are, therefore, not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim
32.
Claim 33
Appellants contend Brown fails to teach “wherein adjusting the
appearance of the non-content UI elements comprises adjusting the first set
of saturated pixel values of at least one non-content UI element while not
adjusting the second set of non-saturated pixel values of the non-content UI
element,” as recited in claim 33 (App. Br. 22—23). We agree with
Appellants.
Brown describes selectively adjusting the transparency of windows
without affecting the z-order—i.e., the order in which graphical objects that
overlap are drawn on top of one another—of the windows (Brown 139).
While Brown discusses adjusting the colors of pixels to effect the desired
transparency of a window (see Brown 145), the Examiner has not shown
Brown teaches adjusting a set of saturated pixel values while not adjusting
non-saturated pixel values.
We are, therefore, constrained by the record to find the Examiner
erred in rejecting claim 33.
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Claims 37—41
The Examiner finds the combination of Brody, Ikeda, Ahn, Hirao, and
Rai discloses all the limitations of independent claim 37, including that
Ikeda teaches “classifying each pixel of a set of pixels based on a pixel
saturation value” and that Ahn teaches “color correction operations . . .
applied in different amounts to different pixels based on the classification of
the pixels” (see Final Act. 25—30). Appellants contend:
While [Ahn’s] dual contrast adjustments adjust the bright
and dark regions differently, they are clearly not based on a pixel
classification computed without brightness, but instead are
explicitly based on brightness values. Thus, Ahn clearly does
not describe the application of color correction operations in
different amounts to different pixels based on the classification
of the pixels, which as recited in claim 37 are computed without
using brightness.
(App. Br. 14—15). We agree with Appellants.
Ahn describes a camera image sensor with a “contrast gain adjuster
for adjusting a brightness distribution of the image detected from the pixel
array by calculating a minimum brightness value of a dark region and a
maximum brightness value of a bright region . . . and determining dual
contrast gains of the dark region and the bright region” (Ahn, col. 2,1. 60-
col. 3,1. 5). The Examiner finds Ahn’s brightness values correspond to the
claimed saturation values of pixels (Final Act. 28; Ans. 7—8). However,
claim 37 specifically requires the classification of pixels to be “based on a
pixel saturation value computed without using brightness” (emphasis added).
Thus, even if we agreed with the Examiner that Ikeda teaches classifying
pixels based on pixel saturation values (see Final Act. 26; Ans. 7), the
Examiner has not shown how Ahn’s adjustment of a brightness distribution
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for dark pixels and bright pixels teaches “color correction operations” based
on pixels classified according to pixel saturation values computed “without
using brightness.” Rather, Ahn’s use of pixel brightness is contrary to the
express language of claim 37.
We are, therefore, constrained by the record to find the Examiner
erred in rejecting independent claim 37, and dependent claims 38-41 for
similar reasons.
The Double Patenting Rejections
Appellants do not provide specific arguments contesting the non-
statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejections of claims 27—32, 34,
37, 43, and 46. Therefore, we pro forma affirm the double patenting
rejections.
CONCLUSIONS
Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 30,
33, and 37—41, and the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 27—29, 31,
32, 34—36, and 43^17.
Under the non-statutory doctrine of obviousness-type double
patenting, Appellants have not shown the Examiner erred in rejecting claims
27-32, 34,37, 43, and 46.
DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejections of claims 33 and 38—
41 are reversed, and the Examiner’s rejections of claims 27—32, 34—37, and
43—47 are affirmed.
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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-IN-PART
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