Ex Parte Sommers

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Nov 18, 2011

10877512 (B.P.A.I. Nov. 18, 2011)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte ANTHONY L. SOMMERS
____________________

Appeal 2009-011833
Application 10/877,512
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, DENISE M. POTHIER,
and ERIC B. CHEN, Administrative Patent Judges.

MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2009-011833
Application 10/877,512

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STATEMENT OF CASE
Introduction
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims
1-17 and 22-25. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

Exemplary Claim
Exemplary independent claim 7 under appeal reads as follows:
7. A method of generating terrain using procedural rules,
the method comprising:
displaying at least a portion of the terrain in a virtual
world;
receiving indicia from a user identifying at least a portion
of the terrain in the virtual world;
selecting at least one characteristic of the identified
portion; and
generating a procedural rule based upon the received
indicia and the selected characteristic,
wherein said procedural rule is organized into
hierarchical layers such that a single location in the terrain can
have multiple procedural rules that overlap and the terrain has
at least one location that has overlapping rules, said procedural
rule including boundaries, filters, and affectors,
wherein when multiple procedural rules overlap the
terrain generator specifies a blend region and initiates a
boundary influence computation to blend heights and colors to
prevent hard, visible discontinuities at the overlap of the
procedural rules,
wherein said procedural rules are textually represented so
that the boundaries, filters, and affectors are assigned numeric
values that represent desired attributes in a logical, textual
format, and
wherein the terrain is modified by adding or deleting at
least one rule from said procedural rules.

Appeal 2009-011833
Application 10/877,512

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Rejection on Appeal
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3, 4, 7-17, 22, 24, and 25 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the combination of Powers (US
6,362,817 B2), Wald (US 5,790,123), and Sanz-Pastor (US 6,747,659 B1).1

Appellant’s Contentions
Appellant contends that the Examiner erred in rejecting all the
independent claims (1, 7, 12, and 17) because the symbol map of Powers is
not a hierarchical layer of rules (App. Br. 10) as asserted by the Examiner
(Ans. 5).
Issue on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1-17 and 22-25 as being
unpatentable because Powers fails to teach a hierarchical layer of rules?

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We agree with Appellant that the
Examiner has erred.
All the claims require that each layer have a hierarchy (e.g., “wherein
said procedural rule is organized into hierarchical layers”). 2 Appellant’s

1 The remaining dependent claims (and claim 22 redundantly) are all
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the combination of Powers, Wald,
and Sanz-Pastor in further combination with various additional references.
All these remaining rejections turn on our decision as to the underlying §
103 rejection, and are not further addressed herein.
The Examiner provisionally rejected claim 1 on the ground of
nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting. Appellant does not dispute
this rejection and we do not further address it further herein.
Appeal 2009-011833
Application 10/877,512

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Specification states that a rule can define a region; can define a road; can
define a river; can include a boundary; can include a filter which defines
conditions including slope, height, shader, direction, and fractal; or can
affect a terrain property such as height, color, shader, flora, and radial flora.
(Spec. 2-4). Appellant’s Specification states that rules are organized in
layers. (Spec. 7). Appellant’s Specification states that layers can be
arranged in a hierarchy. (Spec. 8). Appellant’s Specification states that
hierarchies include parent-child or tree-leaf relationships. (Spec. 8). An
example of the hierarchy includes choosing a family for a region (e.g.,
flora), generating the family, and then selecting one of the children in the
family. (Spec. 8). Appellant provides three examples of hierarchical layers
at page 8 of the Specification in Paragraph [0059].
While we agree with the Examiner that the symbols of Powers are
rules and that there are layers of such rules (levels), we do not agree that the
layers in Powers are hierarchical as required by the claims. The Examiner’s
rejection consists of quotes from the claim each followed by a quote and
citation to a reference without further explanation of why the cited portion of
the reference teaches the claimed feature. 3 While this can be adequate
where the reference and claim share the same terminology or the
correspondence between different terms is readily recognized, it is not
adequate where, as here, the terms differ and correspondence is not readily
apparent. While the Examiner adequately explains why the symbols of
Powers are rules (see pages 23-25 of the Answer), the Examiner’s

2 A “hierarchy” is “a type of organization that, like a tree, branches into
more specific units, each of which is ‘owned’ by the higher level unit
immediately above.” Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary 174 (1991).
3 See, e.g., Examiner’s Final Rejection at page 4-5.
Appeal 2009-011833
Application 10/877,512

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explanation as to why a layer in Powers is hierarchical is insufficient to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness and further explanation is
required.

CONCLUSIONS
(1) Appellant has established that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claims 1-17 and 22-25 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
(2) On this record, claims 1-17 and 22-25 have not been shown to be
unpatentable.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-17 and 22-25 are reversed.

REVERSED

msc