Ex Parte Kilgard

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 27, 2016

13109763 (P.T.A.B. May. 27, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/109,763 05/17/2011
102324 7590 06/01/2016
Artegis Law Group, LLP/NVIDIA
7710 Cherry Park Drive Suite T #104
Houston, TX 77095
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Mark J. KILGARD
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.
NVDA/AU-10-0119-USO-USl 2087
EXAMINER
AKHA V ANNIK, MOHAMMAD H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2613
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/01/2016 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):
kcruz@artegislaw.com
ALGdocketing@artegislaw.com
mmccauley@artegislaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Exparte MARKJ. KILGARD
Appeal2015-001765
Application 13/109,763
Technology Center 2600
Before ERIC S. FRAHM, CATHERINE SHIANG, and JOYCE CRAIG,
Administrative Patent Judges.
FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2015-001765
Application 13/109,763
INTRODUCTION
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-5 and 7-19. Claims 6 and 20 were
objected to as being dependent upon a base claim, and allowable if rewritten
in independent form to include all of the limitations of respective base
claims 1 and 15. Therefore, claims 6 and 20 are not before us. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse.
Illustrative Claim
1. A method of rendering anti-aliased paths, the method
compnsmg:
receiving a path including path geometry and path
covering geometry;
generating, by rendering the path geometry, a stencil
buffer indicating sub-pixel samples of the path to be covered,
wherein the sub-pixel samples are defined by a set of positions
associated with a pixel;
determining, during rendering of the path covering
geometry with stencil testing, surviving pixels that are covered
by the path based on the stencil buffer;
converting the stencil buffer into coverage weights for
the surviving pixels;
shading the surviving pixels; and
blending the shaded surviving pixels based on the
coverage weights to produce a rendered image of the path that
is anti-aliased.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection (Final Act. 3---6; Ans. 2-
6) in light of Appellants' arguments (App. Br. 11-16) that the Examiner has
erred, as well as the Examiner's response to Appellants' arguments in the
Appeal Brief (Ans. 6-7). We concur with Appellants' contentions (App. Br.
11-15) that the Examiner erred in finding claims 1-5 and 7-19 as
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Appeal2015-001765
Application 13/109,763
anticipated by Baldwin (US 6,819,332 B2; issued Nov. 16, 2004) because
Baldwin fails to teach rendering both path geometry and path covering
geometry (Br. 14--15), as recited in independent claims 1, 13, and 15.
While both Baldwin and the invention claimed in claims 1-5 and 7-
19 relate to rendering and anti-aliasing usingjittering (i.e., smoothing
images rendered by a computer), Baldwin uses a triangle to analyze a patch
of pixels (see Abs.; Figs. 1and3A-D; col. 13), and does not render a path
geometry and/or a path covering geometry in order to generate a stencil
buffer and determine surviving pixels covered the path based on the stencil
buffer, as recited in Appellants' claims 1, 13, and 15 and shown in
Appellants' Figures 5A and 5B.
In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection
of independent claims 1, 13, and 15, as well as claims 2-5, 7-12, 14, and
16-19, which depend respectively therefrom, as being anticipated by
Baldwin.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejection of claims 1-5 and 7-19 is reversed.
REVERSED
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