Ex Parte LeeDownload PDFBoard of Patent Appeals and InterferencesAug 20, 200810388500 (B.P.A.I. Aug. 20, 2008) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE _____________ BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS AND INTERFERENCES _____________ Ex parte KYU TAE LEE _____________ Appeal 2008-2511 Application 10/388,500 Technology Center 2600 ______________ Decided: August 20, 2008 _______________ Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, ROBERT E. NAPPI, and KARL D. EASTHOM, Administrative Patent Judges. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) of the final rejection of claims 1 through 16. We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of these claims. INVENTION The invention is directed to apparatus for displaying characters on a screen with reduced sized fonts data. The apparatus reads the fonts data for a Appeal 2008-2511 Application 10/388,500 scan line and displays the data on two consecutive lines. See page 2, and figure 3 of Appellant’s Specification. Claim 1 is representative of the invention and reproduced below: 1. An apparatus for displaying characters, comprising: storage means for storing fonts data of a character; and character image generation means for displaying the fonts data of the character stored in said storage means by always repeating in successive even and odd fields a display of the fonts data. REFERENCE Morrish US 6,392,650 B1 May 21, 2002 (filed May 14, 1999) REJECTIONS AT ISSUE Claims 1 through 6, and 11 through 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Morrish. The Examiner’s rejection is on pages 4 through 6 of the Answer. Claims 7 through 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Morrish. The Examiner’s rejection is on pages 8 and 9 of the Answer. Throughout the opinion, we make reference to the Brief (received April 12, 2007), Reply Brief (received September 26, 2007) and the Answer (mailed July 26, 2007) for the respective details thereof. ISSUES Appellant argues on pages 8 and 12 of the Brief that the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 through 16 is in error. Appellant asserts Morrish does not teach always repeating display of fonts data as recited in the independent claims. Br. 9, 10. Rather, Appellant asserts that Morrish teaches performing 2 Appeal 2008-2511 Application 10/388,500 a calculation of the number of lines of a base character that need to be repeated, thus Morrish “merely teaches ‘selective’ repeating” lines and not always repeating lines, as claimed. App. Br. 11, 12. Appellant recognizes that there is a situation where Morrish will repeat every line of the reference character, but argues that this is not always repeating lines, as claimed. App. Br. 12. Initially, we note that Appellant’s arguments do not differentiate between the two rejections based upon Morrish, thus we will consider the Appellant to have argued that each rejection is in error for the same reason. Appellant’s contentions with respect to both the anticipation rejection and the obviousness rejection based upon Morrish present us with the issue of whether the Examiner erred in finding that Morrish teaches always repeating in successive even and odd fields a display of fonts data as claimed. FINDINGS OF FACT 1. Morrish teaches a signal generator for generating characters for an On Screen Display (OSD) where the characters are a constant height regardless of the number of lines in the display screen. Abstract. 2. Morrish teaches that OSD character generators are font based generators that use a page of characters stored in memory. Col. 1, ll. 14-16. 3 Appeal 2008-2511 Application 10/388,500 3. Morrish teaches that one problem with OSD character generators is that when the mode of operation of the display changes the number of lines in the display changes which also changes the height of the characters displayed. Morrish works to solve this problem by repeating some of the lines of the font data. Col. 1, ll. 41-50, ll. 63,- 66. 4. Morrish shows, in figure 11, the image line number in the first column while the next seven columns show which line number of the character to is be displayed Morrish teaches where the display is in a mode where there are between 648-748 vertical lines (i.e. R=2. I=0), the character generator repeats each line of the character font. See data in col. 6 of figure 11. 5. Morrish teaches that once the parameters for the OSD character generator are set, they remain constant thereafter. Col. 3, l. 65- col. 4, ll. 2. ANALYSIS Anticipation rejection. Initially, we note that Appellant’s Brief identifies each independent claim rejected, on pages 13 and 14 of the Brief. However, these statements associated with each claim merely recite the limitations of the claim and state that they are not taught. Such statements are not separate arguments under 37 C.F.R. § 41.37 (c)(1)(vii). As such, Appellant has grouped all of the claims rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) together. We select claim 1 as representative. 4 Appeal 2008-2511 Application 10/388,500 Appellant’s arguments have not persuaded us that the Examiner erred finding that Morrish teaches always repeating in successive even and odd fields a display of fonts data as claimed. Claim 1 recites a “character image generation means for displaying the fonts data of the character stored in said storage means by always repeating in successive even and odd fields a display of the fonts data.” Thus, the scope of the claim includes a generation means (an on screen display generation unit, Specification p 4, ll. 8-9) that displays font data stored in a storage means (memory, Specification p. 4, ll. 7-8). The generation means always repeats a display of font data in successive fields. The Examiner finds that Morrish teaches these limitations. We concur with the Examiner’s findings. Morrish teaches a device which includes an OSD unit that uses font data stored in memory. Fact 2. Based upon the mode of the display the parameters of the OSD generation unit will be set such that the unit will repeat lines of the font data. Facts 3 and 4. When the monitor is in a mode where there are between 648 and 728 vertical lines, the OSD generating unit will repeat in successive even and odd fields a display of the font, i.e. character data, line 1 will be displayed in line 2 and repeated in line 3. When the monitor is in this mode, all character lines will be similarly repeated. Fact 4. Once the parameters of the OSD unit are set they remain constant. Fact 5. Thus, Morrish teaches that once the parameters are set to repeat successive even and odd fields, the OSD generator will always use the same parameters, and all font data from the memory to be displayed will be repeated in successive even and odd fields. As such, Appellant’s arguments have not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s anticipation rejection as we find ample evidence to support the 5 Appeal 2008-2511 Application 10/388,500 Examiner’s finding that Morrish teaches always repeating in successive even and odd fields a display of fonts data as claimed. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 through 6, and 11 through 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Morrish. Obviousness rejection. As discussed supra, Appellant’s have not separately addressed the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 7 through 10 based upon Morrish. Accordingly, we consider Appellant’s arguments directed to the anticipation rejection based upon Morrish to be also applied to the obviousness rejection. As discussed supra, Appellant’s arguments directed to the anticipation rejection have not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection. We are similarly, not persuaded of error, and sustain in the Examiner’s rejection of claims 7 through 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). SUMMARY For the aforementioned reasons, Appellant has not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1 through 16. Thus, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 through 6, and 11 through 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) and claims 7 through 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). ORDER The decision of the Examiner 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). 6 Appeal 2008-2511 Application 10/388,500 AFFIRMED gvw BIRCH STEWART KOLASCH & BIRCH P.O. BOX 747 FALLS CHURCH, BA 2040-0747 7 Appeal 2008-2511 Application 10/388,500 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation