Ex Parte Zhao

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 30, 2016

12703239 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 30, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
121703,239 02/10/2010
34814 7590 07/05/2016
NXP-LARSON NEWMAN, LLP
6501 William Cannon Drive West
Austin, TX 78735
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Bin Zhao
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
RA48497ZC 3703
EXAMINER
ONYEKABA, AMY
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2628
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/05/2016 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):
ip.department.us@nxp.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte BIN ZHAO
Appeal2014-009224
Application 12/703,239 1
Technology Center 2600
Before JEAN R. HOMERE, KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, and
SHARON PENICK, Administrative Patent Judges.
PENICK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1-3, 5, and 13-15. (Appeal Br. 5-8.) Claims 8-
12 are allowed, claims 4, 6, 7, and 16-20 are objected to as being dependent
on a rejected base claim, but indicated as allowable if rewritten. (Final
Action 9.) We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b)(l).
We affirm.
Invention
Appellant's invention relates to a pulse width modulation (PWM)
signal generator which generates a PWM signal having a specified effective
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Freescale
Semiconductor, Incorporated (Appeal Br. 2.)
Appeal2014-009224
Application 12/703,239
PWivI duty resolution. Input to the PWivI signal generator is a N-bit value,
where the M least significant bits represent a value X, and the N-M most
significant bits represent a value Y. The PWM signal generator generates a
cycle window of 2M cycles, each having a duty of Y or Y + 1. The number of
cycles with the duty Y + 1 is based on the value X. PWM cycles having the
same duty are contiguous within the cycle window. (Spec. i-fi-f 11, 19, 20,
39, 40.)
Illustrative Claim
Claim 1, reproduced below with key limitations emphasized, is
illustrative:
1. A system comprising:
a pulse width modulation (PWM) signal generator
to generate a PWM signal, the PWM signal generator
compnsmg:
a parameter control module to receive a duty
value having N bits and to determine a value X from
the M least significant bits of the duty value and
determine a value Y from the N-M most significant
bits of the duty value, the values X and Y
comprising non-negative integers;
a signal timing module to sequentially
generate, for a cycle window of the PWM signal, X
contiguous PWM cycles having a duty represented
by the value Y + 1 and 2M-X contiguous PWM
cycles having a duty represented by a value Y.
Rejections
The Examiner rejects claims 1-3 and 13-15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Appellant's admitted prior art (AAPA) as shown in
Figure 4A of the Specification and Shigeta (US 6,369,782 B2; iss. Apr. 9,
2002). (Final Action 4--8.)
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Appeal2014-009224
Application 12/703,239
The Examiner rejects claim 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over AAPA, Shigeta, and Nose et al. (US 8,358,264 B2; iss.
Jan. 22, 2013) ("Nose"). (Final Action 8.)
Issues
Issue A: Did the Examiner err in finding the combination of AAP A
and Shigeta teaches or suggests the organization of the PWM cycles taught
in the AAP A so that cycles with duty represented by Y + 1 are contiguous?
Issue B: Did the Examiner err in finding Shigeta to be analogous art to
the invention?
ANALYSIS
Issue A
Appellant contends that the Examiner fails to show that Shigeta
overcomes the deficiencies in the teaching of the AAP A. The Examiner
finds in Shigeta a teaching of organizing sub-frames such that sub-frames
(e.g., SF5a and SF5b in Fig. 11) with the same weight are contiguous.
(Final Action 5.) The Appellant argues that "[t]he portion of Shigeta cited
by the Examiner does not disclose a duty, or anything else, incremented by 1
(Y + 1 ). According to Appellant, Shigeta instead discloses dividing a
heavily weighted sub-frame into two sub-frames." (Appeal Br. 7, citation
omitted.) Thus, Appellant argues that the Examiner "leave[s] undisclosed
the existence of contiguous PWM cycles of duty Y + 1 and contiguous
PWM cycles of duty Y," and thus has not met the primafacie burden of
establishing obviousness. (Reply 2.) Appellant additionally argues that
Shigeta's sub-frames are not PWM cycles. (Appeal Br. 7; Reply Br. 3.)
These arguments are not persuasive.
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Appeal2014-009224
Application 12/703,239
The Examiner does not rely on the teachings of Shigeta as "a duty, or
anything else, incremented by 1 (Y + 1)" but rather relies on Shigeta' s
teaching that the sub-frames are cycles, and that these can be arranged so
that contiguous cycles have the same weight. (Answer 2-3.) We
additionally do not find the argued lack of a teaching or suggestion of PWM
cycles in Shigeta to convince us of error. Appellant's argument focuses on
the references individually, specifically the lack of teaching or suggestion in
Shigeta of elements of the claim which the Examiner finds in the AAP A,
instead of addressing the Examiner's rejection, which is based upon what the
combined teachings would have suggested to the ordinary artisan. See In re
Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425-26 (CCPA 1981).
Accordingly, we are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments that the
Examiner erred in finding the combination of the AAP A and Shigeta teaches
or suggests the disputed limitation.
Issue B
Appellant contends that:
One of skill would not look to Shigeta or plasma display
technology in the context of pulse width modulation because
Shigeta does not disclose pulse width modulation, duty values of
a PWM signal, or X contiguous PWM cycles having a duty
represented by the value Y + 1 where the value X is determined
from the M least significant bits of the duty value. Furthermore,
the PWM signal of the present application is primarily directed
to a backlight of a liquid crystal display and a plasma display
does not utilize a backlight of any kind.
(Appeal Br. 7-8.)
The question of whether a prior art reference is analogous to an
application is answered through examination of (1) whether the reference is
from the same field of endeavor as the application, regardless of the problem
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Appeal2014-009224
Application 12/703,239
addressed, and (2) if the reference is not within the field of the inventor's
endeavor, whether the reference is nonetheless reasonably pertinent to the
particular problem with which the inventor is involved. In re Bigio, 381
F.3d 1320, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Appellant's focus on the specific
teachings absent from Shigeta does not address these issues.
In the Specification, Appellant describes the use of PWM signals "to
obtain a high quality display and to avoid viewer-detectable flickering and
other artifacts" (Spec. i-f 2) and that the PWM-driven component may be
"light emitting diodes (LEDs) of a LED-based display [or] a digital
micromirror device" (id. i-fi-1 13, 23.) Appellant specifically notes that the
PWM duty value may "control a backlight intensity or screen intensity of a
display." (Id. i-f 13.) Shigeta describes driving a plasma display panel in a
way "which may improve the contrast of the display." (Shigeta col. 2, 11.
21-23.)
The Supreme Court directs us to construe the scope of analogous art
broadly, stating that "familiar items may have obvious uses beyond their
primary purposes, and in many cases a person of ordinary skill will be able
to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle." KSR
Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420 (2007). We find that the Shigeta
reference is pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor is
involved, obtaining a high quality display through control of signals driving
the display, and are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments that one of
ordinary skill in the art would not have looked to the teachings of Shigeta.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection
of claim 1, the rejection of independent claim 13, argued on the same basis
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Appeal2014-009224
Application 12/703,239
(Appeal Br. 8), and the rejections of dependent claims 2, 3, 5, and 14--15,
not separately argued. (Id.)
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-3, 5, and 13-
15.
Pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv), no time period for taking any
subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended.
AFFIRMED
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