Ex Parte Weskamp et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 20, 2016

12253834 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 20, 2016)

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.
12/253,834 10/17/2008 Marcos Weskamp B769/ADBS.208566 1187
121363 7590 12/22/2016
Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P.
(Adobe Systems Incorporated)
Intellectual Property Department
2555 Grand Blvd
Kansas City, MO 64108
EXAMINER
HOANG, PHI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2613
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/22/2016 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):
IPDOCKET@SHB.COM
IPRCDKT@SHB.COM
kspringer @ shb .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MARCOS WESKAMP and LORI BEHUN1
Appeal 2015-007420
Application 12/253,834
Technology Center 2600
Before KRISTEN L. DROESCH, NATHAN A. ENGELS and
NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
DROESCH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants seek review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’
Final Rejection of claims 1 and 3—34, all of the pending claims in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
BACKGROUND
The disclosed invention relates to receiving an image to be displayed
within an animation sequence. See Spec. 136, Abstract.
1 Appellants indicate the real party-in-interest is Adobe Systems
Incorporated. App. Br. 4.
Appeal 2015-007420
Application 12/253,834
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Representative claim 1, reproduced from the Claims Appendix of the
Appeal Brief, reads as follows (disputed limitations in italics)'.
1. A computer implemented method comprising:
receiving an image to be displayed within an animation
sequence;
positioning the image on a canvas that is used to create
the animation sequence of the image using a physics property:
calculating, using a processor of a machine, position data
identifying a plurality of positions of the image within a display
area of the canvas, the plurality of positions defining the
animation sequence, the position data calculated by applying
the physics property to the image resulting in the animation
sequence from a start position to a resting position on the
canvas; and
transmitting the position data to a device for aggregation
to generate the animation sequence including the image and the
plurality of positions within the display area for subsequent
retrieval and display.
REFERENCES AND REJECTIONS ON APPEAL
Claims 1, 3, 4, 14, 18, 19, 30, 33, and 34 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Levy et al. (US 2009/0237363 Al)
(“Levy”), Hetherington et al (US 2009/0040289 Al) (“Hetherington”), and
Wolfe (US 2007/0094700 Al). Final Act. 5-8, 21.
Claims 5, 8, 21, and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Levy, Hetherington, Wolfe, and Yamaguchi et al. (US
2008/0303784 Al) (“Yamaguchi”). Final Act. 8-10, 21.
Claims 6 and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Levy, Hetherington, Stenton (US 2006/0030410 Al),
Wolfe, Yamaguchi, and Anderson et al. (US 2008/0216094 Al). Final Act.
10-11,21.
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Application 12/253,834
Claims 7 and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Levy, Hetherington, Wolfe, Yamaguchi, and Brennan et
al. (US 2008/0280738 Al). Final Act. 11-12, 21.
Claims 9 and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Levy, Hetherington, Wolfe, and Castel et al. (US
2008/0255688 Al)(“Castel”). Final Act. 12-13,21.
Claims 10 and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Levy, Hetherington, Wolfe, Castel, and Tom et al. (US
2010/0139134 Al). Final Act. 13-14,21.
Claims 11—13 and 27—29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Levy, Hetherington, Wolfe, and Hildreth (US
2009/0228841 Al). Final Act. 14-15,21.
Claims 15—20 and 30-32 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Levy, Hetherington, Stenton, and Wolfe. Final Act. 15—
21.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments in the Brief, the Answer, and the arguments in the Reply Brief.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner erred.
We agree with, and adopt as our own, the Examiner’s findings and
conclusions of law. We highlight and address specific findings and
arguments below for emphasis.
Appellants argue that Levy, Hetherington, and Wolfe do not teach
“receiving an image to be displayed within an animation sequence,” as
recited in claim 1, and recited similarly in independent claim 33. See App.
Br. 12. Appellants also argue that Levy, Hetherington, Stenton, and Wolfe
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Application 12/253,834
do not teach “requesting retrieval of a stored animation sequence includes an
image and position data aggregated for the image,” as recited in independent
claim 15, and recited similarly in independent claim 31. See id. at 16—17.
Appellants assert that “Appellants Specification states an image is a
photograph formatted using formats such as JPG, GIF, TIFF, PNG, or other
suitable file format.” Id. at 12 (citing Spec. 136), 17 (citing Spec. 1 36).
Appellants also argue “the image can rotate along a pivot point.” Id. at 12
(citing Spec. 148), 17 (citing Spec. 148). Appellants contend that “Levy’s
‘display elements’ . . . cannot rotate as found in Appellants’ claimed
invention.” Id. at 12, 17. Appellants further argue that “Appellants’ ‘image’
cannot initiate executable routines nor facilitate computing functions.” Id.',
see id. at 13.
We agree with the Examiner that Appellants arguments read
limitations improperly into the claim from the Specification. See Ans. 21—
22. We further agree that the Specification indicates that an image may be a
photograph but is not required to be a photograph as suggested by
Appellants. See id. It is improper to read limitations from examples given
in the specification into the claims unless they are otherwise required by the
claims. See Constant v. Advanced Micro-Devices, Inc. 848 F.2d 1560, 1571
(Fed. Cir. 1988). We also agree with the Examiner that the claims do not
require that the image can rotate along a pivot point. See Ans. 22. Lastly,
we note that the broadest reasonable interpretation of “image” in light of
Appellants’ Specification, and the express language of independent claims 1,
15, 17, 31 and 33, do not preclude the claimed image from initiating
executable routines and facilitating computing functions.
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Application 12/253,834
Appellants also argue that “Levy, Hetherington, Stenton, and Wolf. . .
do not teach a canvas as found in Appellants’ claimed invention.” App. Br.
18; see id. at 13. Appellants contend the “claimed invention describes a
canvas as having a physics engine, and this physics engine includes a Y-
gravity and X-gravity.” Id. at 13 (citing Spec. 145), 17, 18 ((citing Spec.
145). Appellants also contend the “physics engine includes a Y-gravity and
X-gravity that can be set.” Id. at 17—18. Appellants contend these features
are not disclosed in Levy, Hetherington, Stenton, and Wolfe. See id. at 13,
17, 18.
We agree with the Examiner that Appellants arguments improperly
read limitations into the claim from the Specification. See Ans. 24. We
further agree that the claims do not require the canvas to have a physics
engine, and to include a Y-gravity and X-gravity. See id. We also agree
with the Examiner that Appellants’ Specification describes an embodiment
with an example graphical user interface (GUI) incorporating a physics
engine. See id. (citing Spec. 145).
Appellants further argue that the teachings of Levy and Hetherington
cannot be combined because the combination would make Levy
unsatisfactory for its intended purpose or change the principle of operation
of Levy. See App. Br. 13—14, 18—19; Reply Br. 4—5. Appellants contend
that if Levy and Hetherington are combined, Levy would change to
incorporate a system to allocate channel bandwidth from remote sources and
have to handle audio, video, text, and other data. See App. Br. 14, 20; Reply
Br. 6. Appellants further contend that Levy’s principle of operation of being
limited to a display device to handle drag and drop operations would expand
to incorporate network devices and network activities as a phone system and
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Application 12/253,834
require Levy to take on more functions than what was originally intended.
See App. Br. 14, 20; Reply Br. 6.
Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive because they are premised
incorrectly on incorporating Hetherington’s entire system, including
Hetherington’s phone’s communications features, into the computing system
and display of Levy. It is not necessary that the inventions of the references
be physically combinable, without change, to render obvious the invention
under review. In re Sneed, 710 F.2d 1544, 1550 (Fed. Cir. 1983). The
Examiner relies on the teachings of Levy in combination with
Hetherington’s teaching of flicking images on the display of Hetherington’s
video phone system. See Final Act. 6 (citing Hetherington 132).
Related to the previous argument, Appellants also argue Hetherington
and Wolfe cannot be combined because their combination would make
Hetherington unsatisfactory for its intended purpose or change the principle
of operation of Hetherington. See App. Br. 20; Reply Br. 7. Appellants
contend that if Hetherington and Wolfe are combined, Hetherington would
change to incorporate cable television and include a set top box, remote
control, and television. See App. Br. 21; Reply Br. 7. Appellants further
assert that Hetherington would be unsatisfactory for its intended purpose of
providing a video phone system because it would have to handle the playing
of electronic games in a network. See App. Br. 21; Reply Br. 7.
Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive because they are premised
incorrectly on modifying the teachings of Hetherington in view of the
teachings of Wolf. The Examiner does not propose modifying the teachings
of Hetherington in view of Wolf. See Final Act. 5—'7, 15—21. Instead, the
Examiner proposes modifying the teachings of Levy in view of the teachings
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of Hetherington and Wolfe (see id. at 5—7), and modifying the teachings of
Levy in view of the teachings of Hetherington, Stenton, and Wolfe (see id. at
15-21).
For all of the foregoing reasons we are not persuaded of error in the
Examiner’s rejections of independent claims 1, 15, 17, 31, and 33.
Appellants do not present substantive arguments addressing dependent
claims 3—14, 16, 18—30, 32, and 34. See App. Br. 12—21. Accordingly, for
the same reasons as those addressing claims 1, 15, 17, 31, and 33, we are not
persuaded of Examiner error in the rejections of 3—14, 16, 18—30, 32, and
34.
DECISION
We AFFIRM the rejections of claims 1 and 3—34.
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
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