Ex Parte Maloney et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 30, 201612870500 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 30, 2016) Copy Citation 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. 12/870,500 08/27/2010 Israel Kee Maloney 8185P100 9939 76073 7590 07/01/2016 InfoPrint Solutions/ Blakely 1279 Oakmead Parkway Sunnyvale, CA 94085-4040 EXAMINER PAYER, PAUL F ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2674 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/01/2016 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte ISRAEL KEE MALONEY, JOHN THOMAS VARGA, TIMOTHY LEROY TOWNS, JUSTIN JAMES COULTER, MIKI JUDY USHIJIMA, and JOHN FORREST MEIXEL ____________ Appeal 2014-006982 Application 12/870,500 Technology Center 2600 ____________ Before JAMES R. HUGHES, KRISTEN L. DROESCH, and TERRENCE W. McMILLIN Administrative Patent Judges. HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s Final Decision rejecting claims 1, 3–20, 22–26, and 28–31. Claims 2, 21, and 27 have been canceled. (App. Br. 3; Final Act. 1–2.)1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 We refer to Appellants’ Specification (“Spec.”) filed Aug. 27, 2010; Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) filed Mar. 11, 2014; and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed May 29, 2014. We also refer to the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) mailed Apr. 29, 2014 and Final Office Action (Final Rejection) (“Final Act.”) mailed Oct. 7, 2013. Appeal 2014-006982 Application 12/870,500 2 Appellants’ Invention The invention at issue on appeal concerns printers, articles of manufacture, and methods substitute mapping output colors in a printing system by determining if a substitution mapping file is available for an output color space, determining if the substitution mapping file includes a substitution entry for an input color space color value to the output color space in use, and generating the output color by using the substitution mapping file to map an input color from an input color space to an output color space if the substitution entry is available. (Spec. ¶¶ 1, 5–6; Abstract.) Illustrative Claim Independent claim 1, reproduced below with the key disputed limitations emphasized, further illustrates the invention: 1. A method comprising: receiving a request to perform color conversion during rasterization of a print job object at a printer; determining if a substitution mapping file is available for an output color space to be generated by the color conversion; determining if the substitution mapping file includes a substitution entry for an input color space color value to the output color space in use; generating the output color by using the substitution mapping file to map an input color from an input color space to an output color space if the substitution entry is available; and generating the output color by using a color management system to map the input color from the input color space to the output color space if the substitution entry is not available. Appeal 2014-006982 Application 12/870,500 3 Rejections on Appeal2 1. The Examiner rejects claims 1, 3–9, 18–20, 26, and 28–31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Akashi (US 2005/0024661 A1, pub. Feb. 3, 2005, Stevens (US 7,616,346 B2, issued Nov. 10, 2009) and Venkateswar (US 6,532,016 B1, issued Mar. 11, 2003). 2. The Examiner rejects claims 10, 11, and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Akashi, Stevens, Venkateswar, and Dalal (US 7,933,053 B2, issued Apr. 26, 2011 (filed Dec. 1, 2006)). 3. The Examiner rejects claims 12–14, 23, and 24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Akashi, Stevens, Venkateswar, Dalal, and Covert (US 5,982,995, issued Nov. 9, 1999). 4. The Examiner rejects claims 12–14, 23, and 24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Akashi, Stevens, Venkateswar, Dalal, Covert, and Flinois (US 5,054,097, issued Oct. 1, 1991). 5. The Examiner rejects claim 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Akashi, Stevens, Venkateswar, Dalal, Covert, and Hancock (US 7,738,140 B2, issued June 15, 2010). ISSUE Based upon our review of the administrative record, Appellants’ contentions, and the Examiner’s findings and conclusions, the pivotal issue before us follows: Does the Examiner err in concluding that Akashi, Stevens, and Venkateswar would have taught or suggested “generating the output color 2 We note that claim 30, rejected over Akashi, Stevens, and Venkateswar, currently depends from canceled claim 27. Appeal 2014-006982 Application 12/870,500 4 by using the substitution mapping file to map an input color from an input color space to an output color space if the substitution entry is available” within the meaning of Appellants’ claim 1 and the commensurate limitations of independent claims 18 and 26? ANALYSIS The Examiner provides the same reasoning for rejecting independent claim 1 and independent claims 18 and 26 (Final Act. 4–7, 9; Ans. 2–5, 7– 8), and rejects representative claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Akashi, Stevens, and Venkateswar. (Final Act. 4.) Appellants contend that Akashi, Stevens, and Venkateswar do not teach the disputed features of representative claim 1. (App. Br. 7–11; Reply Br. 2–3.) Specifically, Appellants contend that Stevens, cited by the Examiner as teaching generating a substitute output color by using a substitution mapping (see Final Act. 4–7), does not teach the substitution mapping. (App. Br. 10– 11; Reply Br. 2–3.) Appellants contend Stevens instead describes spot color identification and correction and that the described spot color correction process “cannot reasonably be construed as being equivalent to a color management process in which input color from an input color space is mapped to an output color space to generate an output color.” (App. Br. 11). We agree with Appellants that Stevens does not teach a color substitution mapping. (See App. Br. 7–11; Reply Br. 2–3.) The Examiner points (see Final Act. 6; Ans. 13–14) to the broad disclosures of Stevens (col. 7, ll. 47–66; col. 8, l. 67–col. 9, l. 10) as teaching color substitution mapping. Stevens, however, fails to teach color substitution mapping. Stevens instead describes spot color dictionaries (SCDs) that provide a color Appeal 2014-006982 Application 12/870,500 5 vector or identify a spot color by an attribute (name). (See id.) The cited portions of Stevens do not describe any mapping, much less substitution mapping of input colors to output colors. Consequently, we are constrained by the record before us to find that the Examiner erred in concluding that Akashi, Stevens, and Venkateswar teach the disputed limitations of Appellants’ claim 1. Independent claims 18 and 26 include limitations of commensurate scope. Claims 3–9, 19, 20, and 28–31 depend on claims 1, 18, and 26, respectively. Accordingly, we reverse the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 1, 3–9, 18–20, 26, and 28–31. With respect to dependent claims 10–17 and 22–25 rejected as obvious over Akashi, Stevens, and Venkateswar, as well as Dalal, Covert, Flinois, and Hancock, we reverse the Examiner’s obviousness rejections for the same reasons set forth with respect to claim 1 (supra). The Examiner does not suggest, and we do not find that the addition of these references cures the deficiencies of Akashi, Stevens, and Venkateswar (discussed supra). CONCLUSION Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 3–20, 22–26, and 28–31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 3–20, 22–26, and 28–31. Appeal 2014-006982 Application 12/870,500 6 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation