International Business Machines Corporation

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 10, 2022

2021000857 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 10, 2022)

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. 16/115,198 08/28/2018 Jeremy R. Fox P201701435US01 1318 75949 7590 03/10/2022 IBM CORPORATION C/O: Fabian Vancott 215 South State Street Suite 1200 Salt Lake City, UT 84111 EXAMINER KIM, WILLIAM JW ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2421 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/10/2022 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): patents@fabianvancott.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JEREMY R. FOX, JONATHAN DUNNE, LIAM S. HARPUR, and KELLEY ANDERS Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 Technology Center 2400 Before RICHARD M. LEBOVITZ, ERIC B. CHEN, and MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judges. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Examiner rejects claims 1, 3, 4, 6-20, 22, and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious. Final Act. 1. Claims 2, 5, and 21 are canceled. Appeal 1 In this Decision, we refer to Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.,” filed August 25, 2020) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”, filed November 16, 2020); the Final Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed May 13, 2020), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed September 28, 2020); and the Specification (“Spec.,” filed August 28, 2018). Rather than repeat the Examiner’s findings and Appellant’s contentions in their entirety, we refer to these documents. Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 2 Br. 21, 22, 26 (Claims App.). Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject the claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The Specification describes filtering images of live stream content to detect and blur prohibited content (i.e., confidential images) present in the stream. Claim 1. Claim 1, reproduced below is illustrative: 1. A method of filtering images of live stream content, comprising: defining a prohibited frame content template, wherein a prohibited frame content of the prohibited frame content template comprises images of confidential information; analyzing live stream content at a frame level in real time to determine content within each frame of the live stream content; comparing the content within each frame of the live stream content against the prohibited frame content template to detect prohibited content including confidential information in the frame that matches prohibited frame content as defined by the prohibited frame content template; and identifying, within the frame, an outline of the prohibited content and blurring a portion of the frame within the outline. Appeal Br. 21 (Claims App.). 2 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as International Business Machines Corporation. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 3 REFERENCES AND REJECTIONS The Examiner relies on the following references: The Examiner rejects: a. claims 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, and Skinner (Final Act. 5-11); b. claims 9-14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Dharssi, and Skinner (id. at 11-17); c. claims 16-18 and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Mukherjee, and Skinner (id. at 17-23); d. claim 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, Skinner, and Dimitrova (id. at 23-24); e. claim 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Dharssi, Skinner, and Dimitrova (id. at 24); 3 All citations are by reference to the first named inventor only. Name3 Reference Date Meyers US 2002/0087403 A1 July 4, 2002 Dimitrova US 2002/0147782 A1 Oct. 10, 2002 Klappert US 2011/0161999 A1 June 30, 2011 Dharssi US 2011/0170772 A1 July 14, 2011 Mukherjee US 2011/0276652 Al Nov. 10, 2011 Sinha US 2013/0205326A1 Aug. 8, 2013 Poornachandran US 2014/0208340 A1 July 24, 2014 Skinner US 10,347,293 B1 July 9, 2019 Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 4 f. claim 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, Skinner, and Dimitrova (id. at 24-25); g. claim 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, Skinner, and Dimitrova (id. at 25-26); and h. claim 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Dharssi, Skinner, and Klappert (id. at 26-28). STANDARD OF REVIEW We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellant, and in light of the contentions and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). Appellant focuses its arguments on claim 1 (see Appeal Br. 11-13; Ans. 3-9); so do we. Arguments not made are forfeited.4 Unless otherwise indicated, we adopt the Examiner’s findings in the Final Office Action and the Answer as our own and highlight the following for emphasis. We address the rejections below. 4 See In re Google Tech. Holdings LLC, 980 F.3d 858, 863 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (“We interpret the Patent Office to be arguing that Google’s failure to raise its lexicography arguments, inadvertent or not, compels a finding of forfeiture.”); 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv)(2018) (“Except as provided for in §§ 41.41, 41.47 and 41.52, any arguments or authorities not included in the appeal brief will be refused consideration by the Board for purposes of the present appeal.”). Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 5 ANALYSIS As noted above, the Examiner rejects claim 1 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, and Skinner. Final Act. 5-9. In particular, the Examiner finds Poornachandran’s television content management system including a media player “configured to adapt display of the portion of the received media content based on a policy when the associated media content rating corresponds to inappropriate content for the identified viewer” (Poornachandran, Abstract) teaches or suggests the majority of the limitations recited in claim 1. Id. at 6-7 (citing Poornachandran ¶¶ 2, 9, 12-13, 18, 28-31, 34, 40). The Examiner finds, however, “Poornachandran fails to explicitly disclose analyzing live stream content at a frame level in real time to determine content within each frame of the live stream content” as recited in claim 1. Id. at 7 (emphasis omitted). Nevertheless, the Examiner finds Sinha teaches or suggests this missing limitation. Id. at 7-8 (citing Sinha, ¶¶ 26-29, 86-87). The Examiner reasons one skilled in the art would have combined the teachings of Poornachandran and Sinha “in order to apply parental controls for any media viewing by children.” Id. at 8. The Examiner further finds the combination of Poornachandran and Sinha fails to disclose the final step of claim 1 of identifying, within the frame, an outline of the prohibited content and blurring a portion of the frame within the outline. Id. To remedy the identified deficiency, the Examiner applies Meyer’s disclosure of obscuring the display of an objectionable object by blurring the corresponding pixels to display only a silhouette. Id. (citing Meyers ¶¶ 44-46, Figs. 5A-D). Finally, finding the combination of “Poornachandran, Sinha, and Meyers fail[s] to explicitly disclose wherein the prohibited content of the prohibited Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 6 frame content template comprises confidential information” the Examiner relies on Skinner’s disclosure of applying a redaction filter to an associated video frame containing confidential information. Id. at 9 (citing Skinner 1:38-2:10, 4:4-42, Figs. 2, 6). Appellant contends the rejection is improper, arguing “Skinner does not disclose images of confidential information as part of the prohibited frame content. Instead, Appellant argues, Skinner converts the images into text via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and then conducts a search for confidential information on the resulting text.” Appeal Br. 13 (citing Skinner, col. 4, lines 4-14). The Examiner replies, characterizing Appellant’s argument as improperly “attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references.” Ans. 5 (citing In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1986)). In particular, the Examiner finds: Poornachandran is relied upon to disclose detecting, in real-time, prohibited content in frames of a received video stream by comparing the image frames of the video stream to known template images of prohibited content. . . . Poornachandran, Sinha, and Meyers in combination reasonably disclose, teach, and suggest the use of known reference templates of inappropriate/undesired content to detect and filter, in real-time, inappropriate/undesired content in live streaming content. The combination of Poornachandran, Sinha, and Meyers, however, are generally focused on embodiments for detecting content that may be inappropriate for children such as nudity or violence. Skinner is specifically introduced to teach that content of the video that may be detected and filtered as inappropriate or undesired to be viewed may be so called ‘confidential information’ for the purposes of preventing inadvertent sharing of confidential information. Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 7 Id. at 5-6 (citing Final Act. 6-9). Appellant’s argument is unpersuasive of Examiner error because it fails to address the Examiner’s findings. In particular, the Examiner finds the combination of Poornachandran, Sinha, and Meyers teaches or suggests detecting, in real-time, prohibited content in frames of a received video stream by comparing the image frames of the video stream to known template images of prohibited content. Skinner’s teaching of filtering inappropriate or undesired (i.e., “confidential information”) images is combined with the teaching of the other cited references. The Examiner did not find that Skinner, alone, teaches or suggests the disputed prohibited frame content template, wherein a prohibited frame content of the prohibited frame content template comprises images of confidential information. See id. Thus, as explained by the Examiner, Appellant’s argument is an improper attack on Skinner individually where the rejections are based on the combination of Poornachandran, Sinha, and Meyers, and Skinner. Appellant further contends “Skinner is incompatible with analyzing each frame in real time.” Appeal Br. 13. Appellant argues Skinner’s frame processing time of “200 milliseconds allows a frame rate of 5 frames per second (fps) which is inadequate for conventional video quality.” Appeal Br. 13. Thus, according to Appellant, “Skinner does not teach or suggest ‘comparing the content within each frame of the live stream content’” as recited by claim 1. Id.at 13-14. The Examiner responds as follows. Appellant's arguments are focused solely on the Skinner reference while failing to address the combined teachings of the references used for the rejection. As noted above with respect to Argument I, the elements of matching live stream frame data to Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 8 known reference templates of prohibited content on a frame-by- frame basis in real-time are rejected over the disclosures and teachings of Poornachandran and Sinha (see Action, pgs. 6-8). Appellant has failed to traverse those combined teachings. Furthermore, as noted above with respect to Argument I, Skinner is specifically introduced to teach that inappropriate/undesired content within some received video data that may be detected and filtered/obscured may be confidential data (see Action, pg. 9). As such, Skinner’s disclosure does not fail to render the disclosures of Poornachandran, Sinha, and Meyers unsatisfactory for detecting and blocking/filtering undesired content in a real-time manner. Ans. 7. The Examiner further finds (i) Appellant’s contention that a 200 millisecond delay renders Skinner’s technique inadequate for real-time video is not supported by the Specification which does not define what is required of real-time processing, (id. at 7-8) and (ii) the use of multiple processors would mitigate the argued delay (Id. at 8). Appellant’s argument is unpersuasive at least because it is the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, and Meyers, not the argued Skinner reference, that teach or suggest the argued live stream content, i.e., video. With respect to the argument about the inadequacy of the frame processing time in Skinner, in addition to the Examiner’s explanation, we note that this is attorney argument and not supported by objective evidence. An argument made by counsel in a brief does not substitute for evidence lacking in the record. Estee Lauder, Inc. v. L’Oréal, S.A., 129 F.3d 588, 595 (Fed. Cir. 1997). Finally, in connection with claim 16, Appellant argues there is no teaching of how to properly combine Skinner with the teachings of the other references: Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 9 The cited references do not teach or suggest a way to combine Skinner with the other references which will allow real time analysis of live stream content at a frame level to determine content within each frame of the live stream content. Instead the references are combined and the limitations of Skinner are hand waved away. The problem is Skinner is incompatible with real time determination of each frame of live stream content. Appeal Br. 18. Appellant’s contention is unpersuasive for several reasons. Initially, Appellant’s argument ignores that Skinner is applied only for teaching a particular type of subject matter to be identified, i.e., confidential information, while the combination of Poornachandran, Sinha, and Meyers teaches or suggests all other aspects of claim 16 including the claimed real time determination of live stream content. Secondly, Appellant provides insufficient evidence or explanation of (i) why modifying the method according to Poornachandran, Sinha, and Meyers to incorporate the teachings of Skinner would result in an inability to perform processing in real time, or (ii) why combining these teachings would have been uniquely challenging or difficult. Instead, Appellant’s argument is improperly based on a wholesale incorporation or combination of structures, rather than what of Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, and Skinner together fairly teach or suggest in combination. The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 10 In re Keller, 642 F.2d at 425. The skilled artisan is not compelled to follow blindly the teachings of one reference over those of another without the exercise of independent judgment. See Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Aeroquip Corp., 733 F.2d 881, 889 (Fed. Cir. 1984). Furthermore, the skilled artisan would “be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle” because the skilled artisan is “a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420-21 (2007). Here, Appellant has not demonstrated that the proffered combination in support of the conclusion of obviousness would have been “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art.” Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 420). For the reasons discussed above, we are not persuaded the Examiner errs in rejecting independent claim 1 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, and Skinner; and we sustain that rejection. Independent claim 9 is argued as allowable for the reasons we find unpersuasive in connection with claim 1. See Appeal Br. 16. Accordingly, we sustain that rejection. Independent claim 16 is argued to be allowable for the reasons discussed above in connection with that claim and for the reasons presented in connection with claim 1. See id. at 18. Finding those arguments unpersuasive, we also affirm the rejection of claim 16. Appellant does not challenge the obviousness rejections of dependent claims 3, 4, 6-8, 10-16, 17-20, and 23 separately. See Appeal Br. 12, 16-19. Thus, we also sustain the rejections of those claims. DECISION 1. The Examiner does not err in rejecting: Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 11 a. claims 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, and Skinner; b. claims 9-14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Dharssi, and Skinner; c. claims 16-18 and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Mukherjee, and Skinner; d. claim 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, Skinner, and Dimitrova; e. claim 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Dharssi, Skinner, and Dimitrova; f. claim 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, Skinner, and Dimitrova; g. claim 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, Skinner, and Dimitrova; and h. claim 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combined teachings of Poornachandran, Sinha, Dharssi, Skinner, and Klappert. 2. Thus, on this record, claims 1, 3, 4, 6-20, 22, and 23 are not patentable. Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 12 CONCLUSION We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 3, 4, 6-20, 22, and 23. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 103 Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, Skinner 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 9-14 103 Poornachandran, Sinha, Dharssi, Skinner 9-14 16-18, 20 103 Poornachandran, Sinha, Mukherjee, Skinner 16-18, 20 8 103 Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, Skinner, Dimitrova 8 15 103 Poornachandran, Sinha, Dharssi, Skinner, Dimitrova 15 19 103 Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, Skinner, Dimitrova 19 22 103 Poornachandran, Sinha, Meyers, Skinner, Dimitrova 22 23 103 Poornachandran, Sinha, Dharssi, Skinner, Klappert 23 Overall Outcome 1, 3, 4, 6- 20, 22, 23 TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE Appeal 2021-000857 Application 16/115,198 13 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)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED