Ex Parte Westphal

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 31, 2014

12487449 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 31, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte GEOFFRY A. WESTPHAL
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Appeal 2012-002846
Application 12/487,4491
Technology Center 3600
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Before ANTON W. FETTING, MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, and
NINA L. MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judges.

ASTORINO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1–7. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 According to the Appellants, “[t]he real party in interest is W.W. Grainger,
Inc.” (App. Br. 2).
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Claimed Subject Matter
Claim 1, the only independent claim on appeal, reproduced below, is
illustrative of the appealed subject matter:
1. A computer readable media embodied on a non-transient,
physical memory device having stored thereon computer
executable instructions for providing product recommendations
in connection with an online retail environment, the
instructions, when executed by a computing device, performing
steps comprising:
receiving at an image recognition system a reference
image;
causing the image recognition system to use data present
within the reference image to locate one or more images in a
database that are similar to the reference image wherein the
images in the database have associated information;
using the information associated with the one or more
images in the database located by the image recognition system
to discern an environmental context for a location shown in the
reference image; and
presenting to a user recommendations for products that
are relevant to the discerned environmental context for the
location shown in the reference image.

Rejections
Claims 1–4 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Grandhi (US 2009/0240735 A1, pub. Sept. 24, 2009) and
Rathus (US 7,765,231 B2, iss. July 27, 2010).
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Grandhi, Rathus, and Official Notice.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Grandhi, Rathus, and Shah (US 2009/0060289 A1, pub. Mar. 5, 2009).
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ANALYSIS
In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner finds Grandhi discloses “using the
information associated with the one or more images in the database located
by the image recognition system to discern a context for the image; and
presenting to the user recommendation for products that are relevant to the
discerned context for the image” (emphasis added) at paragraphs [0060],
[0110], and [0111]. Ans. 6. The Examiner finds that Grandhi does not
disclose “that the context is an environmental context for a location shown
in the reference image,” but finds Rathus discloses this particular type of
context, at column 12, lines 31–67. Id.
The Appellant asserts that neither Grandhi nor Rathus discloses the
claim limitation “using the information associated with the one or more
images in the database located by the image recognition system to discern an
environmental context for a location shown in the reference image.” App.
Br. 5–7. This argument does not address the actual rejection, which is based
on a combination of the two references, Grandhi and Rathus, to disclose the
limitation, as set forth above.
The Appellant further asserts that the combination also does not
disclose the disputed claim limitation, because:
. . . were one of skill in the art to modify Grandhi according to
the teachings of Rathus, one of skill in the art would arrive at a
system in which GPS captured location coordinates are first
used to determine a location, e.g., to locate other images taken
in the same general location, whereupon data within the located
images and the reference image may be compared to discern the
actual object, e.g., the product, that is being shown in the
reference image.
App. Br. 7–8.
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The Appellant asserts this alleged combination contrasts with the claimed
system, because “information about [a] building” contrasts with “the
discerned environmental context of the location . . . .” Id.
We disagree with the Appellant’s assertions. Rathus discloses using
GPS coordinates to locate images with similar coordinates. Col. 12, ll. 31–
40. The Examiner finds that location coordinates correspond to the claimed
“environmental context of a location.” Ans. 6.
The term “environmental context for a location” is not defined in the
Specification. The Appellant directs us to page 8, line 7 to page 9, line 7 as
providing support for all of claim 1. App. Br. 2–3. This portion of the
Specification describes several examples of “information describing or
otherwise relevant to the matched images” associated with the images, such
as “meta-tag data . . . .” Spec. 8, ll. 10–13. This information is then “cross-
referenced against a library of information” that has been “mapped . . . to
various contexts.” Id. at. ll. 13–16.
Based on the foregoing, we agree with the Examiner that GPS
coordinates are included within the broadest reasonable interpretation of the
phrase “environmental context of a location.” One of ordinary skill in the
art would recognize that the coordinates of a location are a form of
environmental context for that location, because the coordinates identify the
location within the context of the Earth, as mapped by a global positioning
system. The addition of GPS coordinate information (Rathus, col. 12, ll. 39–
40) to the other information associated with an image in metadata (Grandhi,
para. 60) is an obvious addition to the other metadata in Grandhi, such as
purses, clothing, and shoes (id.), because it merely expands the types of data
associated with images.
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The Appellant also asserts that Grandhi “cannot be said to be
modifiable” because Grandhi does not “recommend products that are
relevant to a location.” App. Br. 6. This essentially is asserting that Grandhi
fails to provide a teaching, suggestion, or motivation to modify its disclosure
to utilize location as a context. To the extent Appellant seeks an explicit
suggestion or motivation in the reference itself, this is no longer the law in
view of the Supreme Court’s recent holding in KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc.,
550 U.S. 398, 419 (2007).
In addition, the Appellant asserts modifying Grandhi would
“impermissibly change the principle by which the only system disclosed is
intended to operate.” Reply Br. 2. This allegedly is because Grandhi only
discloses one example of metadata: category type. Id. We disagree with
the assertion that explicitly listing only one example (“(e.g., an item
category)”, Grandhi, para. 60) thereby discloses that no other examples
would be permissible. Instead, Grandhi discloses its system “may attach
additional information to the image data before formatting . . .” (para. 53)
and “extract text from an image” (para. 56). Grandhi’s disclosure of
information association would be recognized by one of ordinary skill in the
art as representing many data types that can be associated with an image,
beyond the example of “item category.” Therefore, we do not agree that
merely adding another type of metadata, such as GPS coordinates, would
impermissibly alter Grandhi’s use of data associated with an image to find
other images.
For the foregoing reasons, we sustain the rejection of claim 1, as well
as dependent claims 2–4 and 6 that were not argued separately. We also
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sustain the separate rejections of claims 5 and 7, which were not argued
separately.

DECISION
We affirm the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of claims 1–7.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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