Ex Parte PhillipsDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 31, 201713051547 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 31, 2017) 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. 13/051,547 03/18/2011 W Garland Phillips 2558.072US1 4745 95866 7590 02/02/2017 Fleit Gibbons Gutman Bongini & Bianco P.L. 551 NW 77th street Suite 111 Boca Raton, EL 33487 EXAMINER SADIO, INSA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2628 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/02/2017 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): ptoboc a @ fggbb .com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte W. GARLAND PHILLIPS Appeal 2016-004110 Application 13/051,547 Technology Center 2600 Before JASON V. MORGAN, SHARON FENICK, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2016-004110 Application 13/051,547 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1, 2, and 4—23, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part. THE INVENTION The application is directed to “methods, apparatus and computer program products to display visual information on a foldable display device.” (Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is exemplary: 1. A display system, comprising: a foldable display unit to display visual information in a display area, the visual information based at least in part on display data; and a display control unit receiving the display data and at least one fold signal indicative of a fold in at least a portion of the display area, and outputting one or more display control signals operative to cause the display unit to display the visual information, the display control signals being output at least in part in response to the at least one fold signal to adapt the one or more display control signals to change an appearance of the visual information; wherein the fold in the display unit creates a deformed area located within the display area, the deformed area located adjacent to a fold axis of the display unit; wherein the display control unit outputs one or more display control signals to change the appearance of the visual information to compensate for impairment in the deformed area that is caused by the fold; 1 Appellant identifies BlackBerry Limited as the real party in interest. (See App. Br. 3.) 2 Appeal 2016-004110 Application 13/051,547 wherein the appearance of the visual information in or near the deformed area is changed from a first display format to a second display format, the second display format configured to provide a display of the same visual information provided in the first display format; and wherein the second display format compensates for impairment of visual information displayed in or near the deformed area by providing an appearance of a continuous display of the visual information across the deformed area while maintaining a constant size of the continuous display of the visual information in the first display format and in the second display format. THE REFERENCES AND THE REJECTION Claims 1, 2, and 4—23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kang et al. (US 2010/0141605 Al; published June 10, 2010), Nozawa (US 2005/0140646 Al; published June 30, 2005), Choi et al. (US 2010/0056223 Al; published March 4, 2010), and Cho et al. (US 2003/0231144 Al; published December 18, 2003). (See Final Act. 2—11.) APPELLANT’S CONTENTIONS Appellant argues the Examiner’s rejections are in error for the following reasons (emphasis omitted from quotations): 1. The “[references provide no teaching or suggestion of ‘while maintaining a constant size of the continuous display of the visual information in the first display format and in the second display format’ and Cho is not combinable with other cited references.” (See App. Br. 7—9.) 2. The “[references fail to teach ‘compensate for impairment of visual information displayed in or near a deformed area of the display area.’” (See App. Br. 10-11.) 3 Appeal 2016-004110 Application 13/051,547 3. The “[references fail to teach or suggest ‘change the display of visual information . . . [to] compensate^ for impairment in the display of visual information in the display area that is introduced by the fold in the display unit.’” (See App. Br. 11—13.) 4. The combination does not teach or suggest that “the one or more display control signals to change the appearance avoids the display of the visual information on or near the fold axis in the folded display unit,” as recited in claim 4 and similarly recited in claim 17. (See App. Br. 13—14.) 5. The combination does not teach or suggest that “the one or more display control signals to change the appearance compensates for impairment of the visual information displayed in or near the deformed area that is experienced by a viewer of the visual information at a particular viewing angle,” as recited in claim 5. (See App. Br. 14—15.) ANALYSIS Appellant’s claim 1 is directed to a foldable display that receives a signal indicative of a fold in the display area, where: (a) the fold in the display creates a “deformed area”; (b) a signal is output to change the appearance of the visual information to compensate for “impairment” in the deformed area; (c) the appearance of the visual information in or near the deformed area is changed from a first format to a second format providing the same visual information; and (d) the second format compensates for the impairment by providing a continuous display across the deformed area while maintaining a constant size in both display formats. The portion of the Specification identified by Appellant as supporting (d) explains that visual information continues to be displayed along and in the area of the deformation 17 in the display, but is altered or 4 Appeal 2016-004110 Application 13/051,547 changed in order to improve the perceptibility or display characteristics of the visual information, for example by performing any of the operations to alter the display as otherwise described herein, such as increasing the size of visual information, such as fonts, in the area of the deformation, or changing the color or brightness of visual information. (Spec. 125; see App. Br. 4.) The Examiner rejects the claims as obvious, finding that: (a) Kang teaches a foldable display, a display control unit, display signals, and fold signals to adapt the display; (b) Nozawa teaches signals to change the appearance of visual information to compensate for impairment in a deformed area; (c) Choi teaches changing from a first format to a second format displaying the same visual information; and (d) Cho teaches maintaining a constant size of the display in two formats. (See Final Act. 2— 5 (citing Nozawa 131 & Fig. 5A; Kang || 188, 191 & Fig. 21; and Cho 137 and Fig. 3).) Claims 1, 2, 6—16, and 18—23 Appellant first asserts, regarding Cho, that “the Examiner appears to refer to the ‘first display format’ as the information displayed on ‘one side of the screen 23’ and the ‘second display format’ as the part of the information displayed on the ‘adjacent side of the screen 25.’” (App. Br. 8.) Appellant then argues that “Cho teaches two parts of one display that are displayed at the same time,” which “is clearly not a teaching of a ‘first display format’ and a ‘second display format,’ within the context of a ‘second display format’ that is a modification of a ‘first display format’ that is displayed at a different time under a different condition for the display unit, as is set forth by claim 1 when that claim is considered ‘as a whole.’” (Id.) 5 Appeal 2016-004110 Application 13/051,547 The Examiner responds that “Cho describes that in fig. 3, the displayed image has the same size in both sides of the bent area and in the bent area ([0037]).” (Ans. 12.) We find Appellant’s argument unpersuasive because the Examiner correctly finds that Cho’s displayed image “has the same size in [A] both sides of the bent area [considered as two parts] and [B] in the [entire] bent area [considered as a whole],” meaning that the size is constant in an unbent state (the whole, corresponding to a first display format) and in a bent state (the sum of the two sides, corresponding to a second display format). We recognize that Cho does not teach display control signals or two formats, but the Examiner relies on Nozawa and Choi for those aspects of the claim. (See Final Act. 3, 4.) And we find Appellant’s assertion that “it would not occur to a practitioner of ordinary skill in the relevant arts to interpret the teachings of Cho as a teaching to modify other references” (App. Br. 9) to be conclusory and thus unpersuasive of error because it is merely unsupported attorney argument. We find Appellant’s second argument, that Choi does not teach or suggest compensating for impairment, insufficient to show error because the Examiner relies on Nozawa, not Choi, for teachings regarding compensation for a deformed area, and Nozawa does provide such teachings. (See Final Act. 3 (“Nozawa teaches wherein said the display control unit (fig.l [103], [0021]) outputs one or more display control signals ([0021], [0034]) to change the appearance of the visual information to compensate for impairment in the deformed area that is caused by the fold ([0031], fig. 5 A).”); Nozawa 131 (“The scope of the present invention also includes a display device which detects a deformation of the device with twist sensors 6 Appeal 2016-004110 Application 13/051,547 and corrects a strain of the display portion 101 to be caused by the device body deformation to thereby improve a visual recognition.”).) Appellant’s third argument also fails to show error because, as the Examiner correctly finds, Kang teaches a control signal in response to a fold, and Nozawa teaches compensating for impairment in the area of a fold. (See Final Act. 2—3.) Appellant’s argument again attacks the references individually, instead of addressing the combination actually made by the Examiner. Appellant’s “further assertion] that it would not occur to one [of] ordinary skill in the relevant arts to combine Cho with the other cited references in the manner asserted in the rejections in order to achieve the subject matter of the independent claims” (App. Br. 13) is again conclusory and unsupported. For these reasons, we sustain the rejection of claim 1 and the rejections of claims 2, 6—16, and 18—23, which are argued together with claim 1. (See App. Br. 7.) Claims 4 and 17 Claim 4 recites that “the one or more display control signals to change the appearance avoids the display of the visual information on or near the fold axis in the folded display unit” and claim 17 claims similar subject matter. The Examiner finds Kang teaches avoiding the display of the visual information on or near the fold axis in the folded display unit, citing paragraphs 41, 77—79, and 89. (Final Act. 5.) Appellant argues that “these portions of Kang have no mention of any analogy of a controller that ‘avoids the display of information on or near the fold axis’” (App. Br. 14) and, as we agree with that assessment, we decline to sustain the rejection of claims 4 and 17. 7 Appeal 2016-004110 Application 13/051,547 Claim 5 Claim 5 recites that “the one or more display control signals to change the appearance compensates for impairment of the visual information displayed in or near the deformed area that is experienced by a viewer of the visual information at a particular viewing angle.” We sustain the rejection of this claim because, as there is no limit on the “particular viewing angle,” the claim covers any viewing angle and, therefore, does not narrow claim 1 in a way that would distinguish over the combination discussed above that renders claim 1 obvious. DECISION The Section 103(a) rejections of claims 1, 2, 5—16, and 18—23 are affirmed. The Section 103(a) rejections of claims 4 and 17 are reversed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED-IN-PART 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation