Ex Parte Kujawa et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jun 27, 2011

11132124 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 27, 2011)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte GREGORY A. KUJAWA, MOHAMED IMTIAZ AHMED,
NIKOS BELLAS, SEK M. CHAI, KING F. LEE, and
ABELARDO LOPEZ LAGUNAS
____________

Appeal 2009-009216
Application 11/132,124
Technology Center 2600
____________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, THOMAS S. HAHN, and BRADLEY W.
BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judges.

RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1, 2, 4-16, and 18-20. Claims 3 and 17 have been canceled. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appeal 2009-009216
Application 11/132,124

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Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner,
we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed May 27, 2008), the Answer (mailed July
22, 2008), and the Reply Brief (filed Sep. 19, 2008) for the respective
details. We have considered in this decision only those arguments
Appellants actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments which
Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed
to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).

Appellants’ Invention
Appellants’ invention relates to visual reality augmentation including
one or more real time reality context input stages that provide corresponding
reality context information to a reality content detector. The reality content
detector provides detected object information to an augmented reality
content display that provides augmentation information to augment the real
world scene being viewed by a viewer. (See generally Spec. 3:18-4:15).

Representative claim 1 further illustrates the invention and reads as
follows:
1. A method comprising: capturing, substantially in real time,
information regarding a given reality context within a given field of view,
using at least one camera; processing, substantially in real time, the
information regarding a given reality context to provide detected reality
content for the given field of view; using, substantially in real time, the
detected reality content for the given field of view to provide visually
perceivable reality content augmentation to a person viewing the given field
of view wherein the visually perceivable reality content augmentation is
positionally visually synchronized with respect to at least one element of the
given reality context.
Appeal 2009-009216
Application 11/132,124

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The Examiner’s Rejections

The Examiner’s Answer cites the following prior art references:
Ebersole US 2002/0191004 A1 Dec. 19, 2002
Donath US 6,977,630 B1 Dec. 20, 2005
(filed Jul. 18, 2000)

Claims 1, 2, 4-16, and 18-20, which are all of the appealed claims,
stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Donath
in view of Ebersole.

PRINCIPLES OF LAW
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, it is incumbent upon the
Examiner to establish a factual basis to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1073 (Fed. Cir. 1988). In so
doing, the Examiner must make the factual determinations set forth in
Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17 (1966) (stating that 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 leads to three basic factual inquiries: the scope and content of the prior
art, the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue, and the
level of ordinary skill in the art). Furthermore,
“‘there must be some articulated reasoning with some
rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness’ . . . [H]owever, the analysis need not seek
out precise teachings directed to the specific subject
matter of the challenged claim, for a court can take
account of the inferences and creative steps that a person
of ordinary skill in the art would employ.”

KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007) (quoting In re
Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)).
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Application 11/132,124

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ANALYSIS
At the outset, we note that Appellants’ arguments with respect to the
obviousness rejection of representative independent claim 1 do not attack the
Examiner’s rationale for combining Donath and Ebersole.1 Rather,
Appellants’ arguments focus on the contention that Ebersole does not
overcome Donath’s deficiency in disclosing the use of a camera for the real
time capture of information regarding a reality context within a field of view
as claimed. According to Appellants (App. Br. 12-13; Reply Br. 5-6), while
Ebersole discloses the use of a camera to acquire a real world image, the real
world image is combined with computer-generated reproductions or replicas
of non-real world images. In Appellants’ view, therefore, what is presented
to a user is mixture of real world images and non-real images, not detected
reality content as claimed.
We do not agree with Appellants as we find that Appellants’
arguments unpersuasively focus on the individual differences between the
limitations of representative independent claim 1 and each of the applied
references. It is apparent from the Examiner’s line of reasoning in the
Answer, that the basis for the obviousness rejection is, instead, the
combination of Donath and Ebersole. One cannot show nonobviousness by
attacking references individually where the rejections are based on
combinations of references. In re Keller, 642 F. 2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981);
In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F. 2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986).

1 Appellants argue rejected claims 1, 2, 4-16, and 18-20 together as a group.
See App. Br. 10-12. Accordingly, we select claim 1 as representative. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).

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In other words, while Appellants contend that Ebersole lacks a
teaching of providing detected reality content to a user, the Examiner has
relied upon Donath as providing this teaching. We find no error in the
Examiner’s finding (Ans. 4 and 13) that Donath discloses the use of optical
ranging elements which capture a real world image and present the detected
reality content for a given field of view to a user (Figs. 1 and 3A-3G; col. 3,
ll. 60-65; col. 5, ll. 3-7, 9-16, 25-30, 35-44, 50-64, col. 6, ll. 50-60, and
col. 12, ll. 5-18).
Similarly, while Appellants contend that Donath lacks a teaching of
using a camera to capture real world images in a field of view, the Examiner
has instead relied upon Ebersole for this teaching. As explained by the
Examiner (Ans. 13), Ebersole discloses the use of a camera to capture real
world images and the use of tracking devices to provide information about
the field of view (¶¶ [0024]-[0029]).
We further find that the Examiner (Ans. 4) has provided a valid
articulated line of reasoning to support the conclusion of obviousness for the
proposed combination of Donath and Ebersole. KSR, 550 U.S. at 418. In
our view, the ordinarily skilled artisan would have recognized and
appreciated that Ebersole’s teaching of using a camera to capture real world
images in a field of view would have served as an obvious enhancement to
the visual mobility assist system of Donath.
For the above reasons, we sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
rejection of representative claim 1, as well as claims 2, 4-16, and 18-20, not
separately argued by Appellants.
Appeal 2009-009216
Application 11/132,124

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CONCLUSION OF LAW
Based on the analysis above, we conclude that the Examiner did not
err in rejecting appealed claims 1, 2, 4-16, and 18-20 as obvious under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 4-16, and 18-20 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) 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)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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