Ex Parte Willamowski et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 28, 201311113607 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 28, 2013) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE 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. 11/113,607 04/25/2005 Jutta K. Willamowski 20040870USNP-XER00941US01 8855 27885 7590 07/01/2013 FAY SHARPE LLP 1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor The Halle Building Cleveland, OH 44115 EXAMINER OKEKE, IZUNNA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2432 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/01/2013 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte JUTTA K. WILLAMOWSKI, DAMIAN ARREGUI, and GABRIELA CSURKA ____________ Appeal 2011-001089 Application 11/113,607 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, HUNG H. BUI, and DAVID C. McKONE, Administrative Patent Judges. MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-001089 Application 11/113,607 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-18 and 22-26. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. THE INVENTION Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to protecting the integrity of a set of digital documents and includes, for each of the digital documents in the set, extracting information from the document, incorporating the information into a watermark, and embedding the watermark into at least one other document in the set (Abstract). Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A method comprising: for each image in a set of at least three images: extracting information from the image, the information comprising a thumbnail of the image, incorporating the information into a watermark, and embedding the watermark into at least one other image in the set, wherein after the watermarks are embedded, the completeness of the set of images is ascertainable through an examination of the watermarks of residual images in the set. Appeal 2011-001089 Application 11/113,607 3 REFERENCES and THE REJECTION The Examiner rejected claims1-18 and 22-26 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Robins, et al. (US 2003/0223614 A1) and further in view of Tian (US 2002/0146123 A1). ISSUES The issues are whether the Examiner erred in finding that: 1. the combination of Robins and Tian teaches the limitation of “embedding the watermark into at least one other image in the set” as recited in claim 1; and 2. the combination of Robins and Tian teaches a “watermarking component” as recited in claim 18 for embedding a digital watermark. ANALYSIS Claims 1-17 and 23-26 Appellants argue that Robins does not suggest embedding a watermark which incorporates information, such as the thumbnail of the image, from one image into at least one other image in the set (App. Br. 9; Fig. 3). Appellants further argue that Tian does not cure this deficiency because any embedding done is regarding embedding bit streams within the same document (App. Br. 9; ¶¶ [0022], [0023]). Appellants note that Tian teaches hiding one media signal into another (i.e., hiding one image into another; ¶ [0047]), but that there is no suggestion as to how the hidden media can later be found if the images were separate documents (App. Br. 9). Appellants conclude that neither reference teaches how the watermarks Appeal 2011-001089 Application 11/113,607 4 could be incorporated into other images of a set which would allow them to later be recovered (App. Br. 9). We do not agree with Appellants’ arguments. The Examiner finds, and we agree, that Robins teaches protecting the integrity of images in an image set (Ans. 9). In particular, Robins accomplishes this by incorporating a decryption key of a second image (n+1) in a set into a watermark and embedding it on a first image (n) in a set (Ans. 9). The Examiner further finds, and we agree, that each of the images in the set contains a watermark comprising a digest (thumbnail) of the image and the decryption key (used to decrypt the digest) of a next image in the set (Ans. 9; see Fig. 3). This decryption key serves as the link between the images in the set and is used to verify the integrity of the images (Ans. 9). The Examiner relied on Tian for the teaching of embedding a thumbnail into the next image instead of the same image (Ans. 9-10). Appellants conceded that Tian teaches hiding one image into another (App. Br. 9; ¶ [0047]).1 Thus, we agree with the Examiner’s conclusion that one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to embed Robin’s image digest, instead of the decryption key, in a next image within the image set for the purpose of using the digest to recover portions of the image data if it is altered in transit (Ans. 9). 1 Appellants assert that in Tian there is no suggestion as to how the hidden media can later be found if the images were separate documents (App. Br. 9). We note in passing that, contrary to this assertion, Tian does teach how the embedding process and the authentication process is implemented (¶¶ [0027]-[0034]; Ans. 9). The same process would apply whether the thumbnail was embedded in the same document or a separate document. Appeal 2011-001089 Application 11/113,607 5 Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claim 1 and for the same reasons the rejections of claims 2-17 and 23-26. Claims 18 and 22 Appellants argue that Robins does not suggest a camera which embeds a digital watermark in another image in the set, where the digital watermark is derived from information in the image at the time of capture (App. Br. 13). We do not agree with Appellants’ argument. We agree with the Examiner that Robins teaches a camera (see Fig 1, watermarking system 106 and ¶¶ [0024] and [0016]) having a watermarking component for embedding a watermark (Ans. 10). We refer to our discussion supra with respect to claim 1 for the teaching of embedding the watermark in the next image. Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 18 and 22. CONCLUSIONS The Examiner did not err in finding that: 1. the combination of Robins and Tian teaches the limitation of “embedding the watermark into at least one other image in the set” as recited in claim 1; and 2. the combination of Robins and Tian teaches a “watermarking component” as recited in claim 18 for embedding a digital watermark. DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims1-18 and 22-26 is affirmed. 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). Appeal 2011-001089 Application 11/113,607 6 AFFIRMED tj Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation