Ex Parte ShibasakiDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 19, 201613234921 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 19, 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. 13/234,921 09/16/2011 Akira SHIBASAKI 740250-936 6386 78198 7590 12/21/2016 StiiHehaker & Rraokett PP EXAMINER 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive CHEN, HUO LONG Suite 102 Reston, VA 20191 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2676 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/21/2016 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): info@ sbpatentlaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte AKIRA SHIBASAKI Appeal 2015-008221 Application 13/234,921 Technology Center 2600 Before ERIC S. FRAHM, JENNIFER L. McKEOWN, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2015-008221 Application 13/234,921 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1—17. Because claims 7—11, 13, and 14 stand objected to as containing allowable subject matter if rewritten (see Final Act. 23—25), only claims 1—6, 12, and 15—17 are before us on appeal. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part. Appellant s Disclosed Invention Appellant discloses an apparatus and computer program for generating and processing print job data for plural pages to be printed by a print engine by dividing and arranging the pages of print job data in reverse order of page numbers (Spec. 4:1—5:17; Abs.; claims 1 and 15). Exemplary Claims An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of exemplary claims 1, 2, 6, and 17, which are reproduced below with emphases added: 1. A print data generating apparatus, comprising: a print job data receiving section, for receiving print job data having a print data for a plurality of pages and which are recognizable by a printing section; a divided print job data generating section, for dividing the plurality of pages into groups of a predetermined number of pages, and for assigning the divided plurality of pages to the print job data received by the print job data receiving section, to generate a plurality of pieces of divided print job data; and an expansion processing section, for arranging the pieces of divided print job data generated by the divided print job data generating section in reverse order of page numbers, for generating page data for each page by administering 2 Appeal 2015-008221 Application 13/234,921 expansion processes on the pieces of divided print job data in the order that they are arranged, and for outputting the page data for each piece of divided print job data in reverse order of page numbers and in the order that the expansion processes are administered, to the printing section. 2. A print data generating apparatus as defined in Claim 1, wherein: the expansion processing section discards page data for pages other than pages assigned to each piece of divided print job data. 6. A print data generating apparatus as defined in Claim 1, wherein: the expansion processing section initiates the expansion process for an n+lst divided print job data at a point in time when the expansion process and the output process of the page data of an nth (n is an integer having a value of 1 or greater) piece of divided print job data are complete. 17. A print data generating apparatus as defined in Claim 3, wherein: the expansion processing section administers a first expansion process having a relatively heavy processing load onto pages which are assigned to the divided print jobs and are to be printed, and administers a second expansion process having a relatively light processing load onto pages other than the pages onto which the first expansion process is administered, and which are discarded without being stored. The Examiner s Rejections (1) The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 4—6, 15, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Rai (US 6,805,502 B2; issued Oct. 19, 2004) and Rodrequez (US 2002/0135791 Al; published Sep. 26, 2002). Final Act. 8—16. 3 Appeal 2015-008221 Application 13/234,921 (2) The Examiner rejected claim 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Rai, Rodriquez, and Klassen (US 2009/0161163 Al; published Jun. 25, 2009)(hereinafter, “Klassen ‘163”). Final Act. 16—17. (3) The Examiner rejected claim 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Rai, Rodriquez, and Klassen (US 2011/0122433 Al; published May 26, 2011)(hereinafter, “Klassen ‘433”). Final Act. 17—20. (4) The Examiner rejected claim 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Rai, Rodriquez, Klassen ‘163, and Nishiwaki (US 2003/0161002 Al; published Aug. 8, 2003). Final Act. 20- 22. Issues on Appeal Based on Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief (Br. 3—9) in light of the Examiner’s response to Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief (Ans. 5—13), the following three principal issues are presented on appeal: (1) Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1,3,4, 5, 12, 15, and 16 because the base combination of Rai and Rodriquez fails to teach or suggest arranging and outputting divided print job data in reverse order of page numbers, as recited in representative claim 1? (2) Did the Examiner err in rejecting (i) dependent claim 2 for obviousness over Rai and Rodriquez, and (ii) claim 17 over Rai, Rodriquez, Klassen ‘163, and Nishiwaki, because none of the applied references, taken singly or in combination, disclose deleting or discarding page data when performing in expansion process as recited? 4 Appeal 2015-008221 Application 13/234,921 (3) Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 6 because the combination of Rai and Rodriquez fails to teach or suggest initiating the expansion process with the timing limitations, as recited in dependent claim 6? ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections (Final Act. 8—22) in light of Appellant’s contentions in the Appeal Brief (Br. 3—9) that the Examiner has erred, as well as the Examiner’s response to Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief (Ans. 5—13). Claims 2, 6, and 17 We agree with Appellant’s contentions as to claims 2, 6, and 17 (Br. 5—7 and 9) because none of the applied references, Rai, Rodriquez, Klassen ‘163, and/or Nishiwaki, taken singly or in any combination thereof, teach or suggest (i) deleting or discarding page data when performing in expansion process as recited in claims 2 and 17; and/or (ii) initiating the expansion process with the timing limitations as set forth in claim 6. With regard to claim 2, Appellant’s argument (Br. 5—6) that none of Rai, Rodriquez, and/or Salgado (used to support Official Notice taken by the Examiner) teach or suggest deletion of page data for pages other than pages assigned to each piece of divided print job data when performing an expansion process is persuasive. Even if it were obvious to discard/delete page data, the Examiner’s determination that it would have been obvious to do so for some page data (and NOT to do so for other page data) during an expansion process is conclusory and not rationally articulated. With regard to claim 17, although Nishiwaki (|| 40 and 62) discloses a data deleting section 106 for deleting page and image data, Nishiwaki 5 Appeal 2015-008221 Application 13/234,921 makes clear that all the working, page, and image data is stored in the image memory area 123 in step S310, as shown in Figure 3 (see 1 62). Therefore, Appellant’s argument (Br. 9) that Nishiwaki fails to discard page data without being stored when performing an expansion process is persuasive. With regard to claim 6, the Examiner’s explanation (Ans. 9—11) of how/why the combination of Rai and Rodriquez would be combined to meet the detailed timing limitations of claim 6 is speculative and conclusory, and merely relies on Figure 4 of Rai as supporting the conclusion of obviousness (see Ans. 10). Although Rai’s Figure 4 shows a process for calculating an optimal batch size and determining the time needed for processing, Figure 4 does not teach or suggest initiating an “expansion process for n+lst divided print job data at a point in time when the expansion process and the output process of the page data of an nth (n is an integer having a value of 1 or greater) piece of divided print job data are complete” as recitd in claim 6. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 2, 6, and 17. Claims 1, 3—5, 12, 15, and 16 We disagree with the Appellant’s conclusions as to representative independent claim 1 and dependent claims 4 and 12 separately argued. With regard to claims 1, 4, and 12, we adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 8—12 and 17—20), and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief (Ans. 5—11 and 13). We highlight and amplify certain teachings and suggestions of the references as follows. 6 Appeal 2015-008221 Application 13/234,921 We note that each reference cited by the Examiner must be read, not in isolation, but for what it fairly teaches in combination with the prior art as a whole. See In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (finding one cannot show non-obviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references). In this light, Appellant’s arguments as to representative independent claim 1 (Br. 3—5) concerning the individual shortcomings in the teachings of Rai and Rodriquez are not persuasive, and are not convincing of the non-obviousness of the claimed invention set forth in representative independent claim 1. The Examiner has relied upon the combination of Rai and Rodriquez as teaching or suggesting the print data generating apparatus for arranging and outputting divided print job data in reverse order of page numbers as recited in claim 1. We agree with the Examiner (Final Act. 8—11; Ans. 5—7) that Rai (Fig. 2; see also Abs.) teaches the dividing and expansion process recited in claim 1, and Rodriquez (Fig. 5, steps 302 and 304) teaches processing in reverse order of pages. Appellant has not filed a Reply Brief or shown error otherwise with persuasive argument or evidence. Based on the foregoing, Appellants’ contentions are not persuasive of Examiner error with regard to representative claim 1. In addition, Appellant’s arguments (Br. 3 4) that Rai fails to disclose or suggest dividing print data of pages in order of page number are unpersuasive inasmuch as these arguments are not commensurate in scope with the subject matter recited in claim 1, which requires dividing and arranging print data of pages in reverse order of page number. 7 Appeal 2015-008221 Application 13/234,921 In view of the foregoing, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of representative claim 1, as well as claims 5, 15, and 16 grouped therewith. With regard to dependent claim 3, Appellant’s arguments based on the base combination of Rai and Rodriquez (Br. 7—9) are not persuasive of Examiner error for similar reasons as provided above as to claim 1. Notably, Appellant does not dispute the Examiner’s reliance upon Klassen ‘163 as teaching different processes, including the citation to paragraph 40. We agree with the Examiner’s findings as to the teachings and suggestions of Klassen ‘163. With regard to claims 4 and 12, Appellant’s arguments (Br. 4 and 9) that the base combination of Rai and Rodriquez fails to disclose or suggest determining the number of groups of print data are unpersuasive. Instead, we agree with the Examiner (Final Act. 12 and 17—20; Ans. 9) that Rai (Fig. 2) implicitly teaches determining the number of batches into which print job data is divided, and as such Rai’s batching combined with Rodriquez’s reverse ordering meets the recited grouping limitations. Specifically, steps 34 and 36 perform batch processing that implicitly includes determining the number of batches. Appellant’s arguments regarding Rai’s failure to disclose or suggest determining the number of batches are also unpersuasive in light of Rai’s disclosure that a number of items in a print job is determined in order to calculate optimal batch size (Fig. 4, steps 56 and 58; col. 4,11. 39—51), and that many different variables may be determined “in order to calculate optimal batch size” (col. 4,11. 47-48). 8 Appeal 2015-008221 Application 13/234,921 Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 1, 3, 4, 5, 12, 15, and 16 over the base combination of Rai and Rodriquez. CONCLUSIONS (1) The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1, 3—5, 12, 15, and 16 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because the base combination of Rai and Rodriquez teaches or suggests (i) arranging and outputting divided print job data in reverse order of page numbers, as recited in representative independent claim 1; and (ii) determining the number of groups of print data, as recited in dependent claims 4 and 12. And, Appellant has not shown that the combination of Rai, Rodriquez, and Klassen ‘ 163 fails to teach or suggest using different processing for first and second expansion processes, as recited in claim 3. (2) The Examiner erred in rejecting (i) dependent claim 2 for obviousness over Rai and Rodriquez, and (ii) claim 17 over Rai, Rodriquez, Klassen ‘163, and Nishiwaki, because none of the applied references, taken singly or in combination, discloses deleting or discarding page data when performing in expansion process as recited. (3) The Examiner erred in rejecting dependent claim 6 because the combination of Rai and Rodriquez fails to teach or suggest initiating the expansion process with the timing limitations as set forth in claim 6. DECISION The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 3—5, 12, 15, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are affirmed. 9 Appeal 2015-008221 Application 13/234,921 The Examiner’s rejections of claims 2, 6, and 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) 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 10 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation