Ex Parte Wu et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 12, 2018

13618703 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 12, 2018)

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.
13/618,703 09/14/2012 Yuguang Wu 16013-000461/US 4995
15377 7590 03/14/2018
RMCK Law Group, PLC (Google)
Michael A Schaldenbrand
PO Box 210280
Auburn Hills, MI 48321
EXAMINER
MCCARTY, TAUNYA A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2651
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/14/2018 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):
mailbox@rmcklaw.com
gail@rmcklaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte YUGUANG WU and JIANMING HE
Appeal 2017-008462
Application 13/618,7031
Technology Center 2600
Before ERIC S. FRAHM, CARL L. SILVERMAN, and SCOTT E. BAIN,
Administrative Patent Judges.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 23—29, 31—36, 38-43, and 45^47, which constitute
all pending claims. Claims 1—22, 30, 37, and 44 are cancelled. App. Br. 3.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The invention relates to displaying participants in a video
communication session in which there are more participants in the session
than computing devices connected to the communication session can
1 The real party in interest is identified as Google Inc. App. Br. 3.
Appeal 2017-008462
Application 13/618,703
support. Abstract. Claim 23, reproduced below, is exemplary of the subject
matter on appeal (emphasis added):
23. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
determining, using one or more computing devices and for a
particular user participating in a real-time visual communication
session, a participation rating for each of a plurality of participants in
the real-time visual communication session based on one or more
participation properties, the one or more participation properties being
relevant to a desirability for displaying visual data associated with
each of the plurality of participants;
selecting, using the one or more computing devices and from
the plurality of participants, at least a first and second active
participant to each be associated with an active state in the real-time
visual communication session based on the participation ratings;
providing, using the one or more computing devices and for
display on a display device of a user computing device associated
with the particular user, first visual data associated with the first active
participant and second visual data associated with the second active
participant; and
selecting, using the one or more computing devices and from
the plurality of participants, at least one passive participant to be
associated with a passive state in the real-time visual communication
session based on the participation ratings, wherein visual data
associated with the at least one passive participant is not provided for
display on the display device of the user computing device,
wherein the participation ratings for each of the plurality of
participants are determined for the particular user and are
independent of the participation ratings as determined for other
users.
App. Br. 21—22 (Claims Appendix).
THE REJECTIONS
Claims 23, 24, 26—29, 31, 32, 34—36, 38, 39, and 41—43 are rejected
under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Thakkar et al.
(U.S. 2009/0282103 Al; pub. Nov. 12, 2009) (“Thakkar”). Final Act. 5-16.
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Claims 25, 33, and 40 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Thakkar and Caviedes et al. (U.S. 6,646,673 B2;
iss. Nov. 11, 2003) (“Caviedes”). Final Act. 16—17.
Claims 45-47 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Thakkar and McCuller (U.S. 7,865,551 B2; iss. Jan. 4,
2011) (“McCuller”). Final Act. 17-19.
ANALYSIS
The §102 Rejection
Appellants argue the Examiner errs in finding Thakkar teaches the
claim 23 limitation wherein the participation ratings for each of the
plurality ofparticipants are determined for the particular user and are
independent of the participation ratings as determined for other users. App.
Br. 17-19; Reply Br. 2-5.
Appellants argue the Examiner errs in interpreting the Thakkar
“activity score” to correspond to the claimed “participation rating.” App.
Br. 18 (citing Final Act. 4; Thakkar H 4, 57). Appellants argue the
Specification’s description is applicable:
Participation ratings may be determined individually for each
participant. That is, for each user, the participation ratings for
that participant and all other participants may be determined
independently of other users' participation ratings. These
separate determinations may be based on particular aspects of the
relationship between the determining participant and the other
participants in the video conference. Such relationships may
include factors such as whether the determining participant is
friends with the other participants, the presence of an
employment or familial relationship, whether the determining
participant has blocked a participant, etc. This enables different
users of computing devices, such as computing devices 4, to see
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different sets of the plurality of participants as compared with
other users or participants.
Spec. 191 (emphases added).
Appellants argue Thakkar’s activity score is not “independent of the
[activity scores] as determined for other users" as claimed, but instead
relates to speech activity of that particular participant.” Id. at 19 (citing
Thakkar 1 57). Appellants then argue Thakkar does not disclose, teach, or
suggest the disputed limitation. Id.
Appellants further argue the Caviedes and McCuller references (cited
for obviousness, not anticipation) fail to remedy the deficiencies of Thakkar.
Id. at 19.
The Examiner finds Thakkar’s “activity score” corresponds to the
claimed “participation rating.” Final Act. 6 (citing Thakkar 157, “[t]he ASG
module 250 may use the speech activity information, among other inputs, to
generate activity scores for the participants’ '’). The Examiner finds Thakkar
describes the disputed limitation. Id. at 8 (citing Thakkar Figs. 1—3b, 1 66,
71, 72). For example, Thakkar describes active and non-active groups and
selecting the active groups through the use of the “activity score” in which
“[djuring initialization or at the start of a media conferencing event, the
media selection module 260 may select the active group of decoded media
streams in any number of different ways as previously described.’ ’ Id. at 8;
see Thakkar, Figs. 3a, 3b.
In the Answer, the Examiner additionally finds Thakkar describes, for
example, the activity score may represent a most recent time for speech
activity by a participant, a ratio value of speech activity to non-speech
activity, a count value for speech activity by a participant, and a length value
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for speech activity by a participant. Ans. 23—24 (citing Thakkar || 53, 60-
62). The Examiner finds Thakkar describes the disputed limitation:
the activity score of a particular participant is determined
individually for each [other] (individual) participant, and an
activity score is independent of the activity scores as determined
for other users. For example, with respect to the activity score, a
time stamp for one participant is independent of the time stamp
of another participant. Examiner did not find any indication in
Thakkar precluding or prohibiting an individual activity score for
each participant.
Id. at 26.
In the Reply Brief, Appellants argue the Examiner misconstrues the
claim language because:
[t]he specific claim language provides that "the participation
ratings for each of the plurality of participants are determined for
the particular user and are independent of the participation
ratings as determined for other users." Claim 23 (emphases
added). Thus, each participant may have multiple, different
"participation ratings" (e.g., one for each "user") since each
"participation rating" is for both the "participant" and the "user"
for whom the "participation rating" is being determined. This is
very different from the "activity score" of Thakkar, which in all
examples is described as being generated "for the participants"
as a whole. Thakk[a]r at [0057].
Reply Br. 4.
As discussed below, we are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments
and agree, instead, with the Examiner’s findings and conclusions. See Final
Act. 5—9; Ans. 19-28.
Appellants present no persuasive evidence that the Examiner’s claim
interpretation is unreasonable or overbroad. Claim terms in a patent
application are given the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with
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the Specification, as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re
Crish, 393 F.3d 1253, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Appellants’ reference to
paragraph 91 of the Specification does not provide a definition that supports
Appellants’ arguments. See App. Br. 18—19. To the contrary, we note the
description “[tjhese separate determinations may be based on particular
aspects of the relationship between the determining participant and the other
participants . . .” is not recited in claim 23. Additionally, paragraph 91
describes participation ratings for each participant may be the same among
all users.
Applying a broad, but reasonable, claim interpretation, we are not
persuaded by Appellants’ arguments and agree, instead, with the Examiner’s
findings that Thakkar’s use of activity scores describes the disputed
limitation and therefore anticipates claim 23. A claim is anticipated only if
each and every element as set forth in the claims is found, either expressly or
inherently described in a single prior art reference, and arranged as required
by the claim. Verdegaal Bros., Inc. v. Union Oil Co. of Cal., 814 F.2d 628,
631 (Fed. Cir. 1987). See also In re Crish, 393 F.3d 1253, 1256 (Fed. Cir.
2004).
In view of the above, we sustain the anticipation rejection of claim 23,
and independent claims 31 and 38, which are argued together with claim 23.
We also sustain the rejection of dependent claims 24, 26—29, 31, 32, 34—36,
38, 39, and 41—43, as these claims are not argued separately. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
The §103 Rejection
In the obviousness rejections of dependent claims 25, 33, 40, and 45—
47 over Thakkar and additional cited references (Caviedes and McCuller),
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Appellants rely on dependency to the independent claims discussed, supra...
App. Br. 19. We are not persuaded by this argument as we agree with the
Examiner that there are no deficiencies over Thakkar and, therefore, we
sustain the obviousness rejection of these claims.
DECISION
We sustain the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 23, 24, 26—29,
31, 32, 34—36, 38, 39, and 41—43 under 35 U.S.C § 102(b).
We sustain the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 25, 33, 40, and
45^17 under 35 U.S.C § 103(a).
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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