Ex Parte Loudon et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jul 30, 2002

08652160 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 30, 2002)

The opinion in support of the decision being entered today was not
written for publication and is not binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 23
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte GARETH H. LOUDON and YI-MIN WU
____________
Appeal No. 2000-2065
Application No. 08/652,160
____________
ON BRIEF
____________
Before HAIRSTON, FLEMING, and SAADAT, Administrative Patent
Judges.
FLEMING, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal from the final rejection of
claims 17, 55, 56, 58, 59, 61 and 62. Claims 1-16, 18-54, 57,
63-68 have been canceled.
The invention includes an on-line handwriting recognition
system for ideographic characters based on subcharacter hidden
Markov models that can recognize cursive and print style
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Application No. 08/652,160
handwriting. See Appellants' specification, page 5, lines 21-24.
The invention includes a handwriting preprocessor (54) which
performs the operations shown in steps 350, 352, 354, and 356 of
Figure 11. Step 350 receives digitized input and, for printed
characters, interpolates between consecutive strokes to create a
one stroke version of the printed character. Step 352 smooths
the interpolated characters. Step 354 scales all inputted
characters and step 356 resamples all characters. See
Appellants' specification, page 27, lines 13-19 and Figures 11
and 12.
Independent claim 17 present in the application is
reproduced as follows:
17. A method of recognizing a handwritten character comprising:
receiving an input of said handwritten character, wherein
said handwritten character is written with multiple strokes;
preprocessing said input to provide a one-stroke written
representation of said handwritten character wherein said
preprocessing comprises smoothing said points in said input,
scaling said points, and resampling said points; and,
recognizing said handwritten character, wherein said
recognizing is performed after said preprocessing.
1 Appellants filed an Appeal Brief on February 14, 2000. We
will refer to the appeal brief as the Brief.
2 The Examiner filed an answer on February 29, 2000. We
will refer to the answer as the Answer.
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Appeal No. 2000-2065
Application No. 08/652,160
References
The references relied on by the Examiner are as follows:
Gourdol 5,594,810 Jan. 14, 1997
Poon et al. 5,687,254 Nov. 11, 1997
Yoshida et al. "Online Handwritten Character Recognition for a
Personal Computer System." IEEE Transactions on Consumer
Electronics, vol. CE-28, no. 3 (August 1982), pp. 202-209.
Rejections at Issue
Claims 17, 55, 56, 58, 59, 61 and 62 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Yoshida, Poon and
Gourdol.
Rather than repeat the arguments of Appellants or the
Examiner, we make reference to the brief1 and the answer2 for the
details thereof.
OPINION
We will reverse the rejection of claims 17, 55, 56, 58, 59,
61 and 62.
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Application No. 08/652,160
In response to the Examiner's statement that Yoshida teaches
that smoothing of points because Yoshida discloses interpolating
the inter-stroke gap, Appellants argue that Yoshida does not
teach or suggest preprocessing of input wherein the preprocessing
comprises smoothing said points in said input, scaling said
points, and resampling said points. See Brief, page 11, lines 1-
4. Specifically, Appellants argue that Yoshida's interpolation
is different from smoothing of points as performed in the claimed
invention, because in the claimed invention, interpolation of the
input character occurs prior to the smoothing. See Brief, page
10, lines 25-28. The interpolated character is smoothed using a
simple triangular filter using conventional techniques well known
in the art. See Brief, page 10, lines 28-29.
The question before us is whether the Examiner properly
interpreted smoothing of points of the input in the preprocessing
stage to include interpolation of points.
Claims will be given their broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with the specification, and limitations
appearing in the specification are not to be read into the
claims. In re Etter, 756 F.2d 852, 858, 225 USPQ 1, 5. "[W]hen
interpreting a claim, words of the claim are generally given
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Application No. 08/652,160
their ordinary and accustomed meaning, unless it appears from the
specification or the file history that they were used differently
by the inventor." In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480, 31 USPQ2d
1671, 1674 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
In determining the scope of the claims of the present
invention, we find that Appellants used the word "smoothing"
differently than as used by the Examiner. The Examiner uses the
word "smoothing" to include interpolation of the inter-stroke
gaps. See Answer, page 4, lines 12-13. It is known that
"interpolation" is to estimating a value of a function between
two known values. "Smoothing" is known in the prior art as a
method of reducing noise in an image and to prepare images for
further processing. Smoothing is often accomplished using
filters, such as by using a simple triangular filter. See, for
example, Appellants' specification page 27, lines 13-14, which
discloses that "the interpolated character is smoothed using a
simple triangular filter using conventional techniques well known
in the art." See also Figure 13 which shows the effect of
conducting a smoothing operation of the characters. Smoothing
has the effect of rounding the sharp edges. See, for example,
the edge formed by points 374b, 374a and 370c, which is rounded
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Application No. 08/652,160
after smoothing. The interpolation of characters as performed in
Yoshida is not smoothing as recited in claim 17, because
interpolation is not a method used to reduce noise and does not
have a rounding effect. We therefore, cannot sustain the
Examiner's position that Yoshida teaches smoothing of the input.
Hence, we must reverse the Examiner's rejection of claim 17.
REVERSED
KENNETH W. HAIRSTON )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
MICHAEL R. FLEMING ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
MAHSHID D. SAADAT )
Administrative Patent Judge )
MRF/LBG
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Appeal No. 2000-2065
Application No. 08/652,160
BLAKELY, SOKOLOFF, TAYLOR & ZAFMAN
12400 WISHISRE BOULEVARD SEVENTH FLOOR
LOS ANGELES CA 90025
Lesley
Appeal No. 2000-2065
Application No. 08/652,160
APJ FLEMING
APJ SAADAT
APJ HAIRSTON
DECISION: REVERSED

Prepared: September 15, 2003
Draft Final
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