nullDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardDec 2, 201914224079 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Dec. 2, 2019) Copy Citation 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. 14/224,079 03/25/2014 Aki Petri HAPPONEN PAT 89465A-2 5160 132251 7590 12/02/2019 (BLG/Conversant Wireless/27921) Borden Ladner Gervais LLP World Exchange Plaza 100 Queen Street, Suite 1300 Ottawa, ONTARIO K1P 1J9 CANADA EXAMINER ORR, HENRY W ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2145 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/02/2019 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): ipinfo@blg.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte AKI PETRI HAPPONEN ____________________ Appeal 2019-001411 Application 14/224,079 Technology Center 2100 ____________________ Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, PHILLIP A. BENNETT, and IFTIKHAR AHMED, Administrative Patent Judges. AHMED, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 2–9 and 11–18, which are all of the claims pending in the application. Claims 1, 10, 19–21 have been cancelled. Appeal Br. 17–19. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. Technology The application relates to a user interface for sharing image data, and, in particular, sharing a selection of image data with recipients. Spec. ¶ 2. 1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). According to Appellant, the real party in interest is assignee, Conversant Wireless Licensing SARL. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2019-001411 Application 14/224,079 2 Illustrative Claim Claim 2 is illustrative and reproduced below with certain limitations at issue emphasized: 1. An apparatus comprising: a controller, wherein said controller is configured to: display an area associated with at least one recipient; display an image; receive input indicating a selection area of a portion of said image less than the full area of said image; display the indicated selection area within the full area of the image and simultaneously with the area associated with at least one recipient; receive input indicating a movement of the selection area by dragging the selection area from a location within the full area of the image to the area associated with at least one recipient; identify the at least one recipient based upon the movement of the selection area to the area associated with at least one recipient; and send the portion of said image in the selection area to the at least one recipient; wherein the controller is configured to receive the input indicating the selection area and to receive the input indicating movement of the selection area to the area associated with at least one recipient in the same application window. Rejections Claims 2, 3, 6–9, 11, 12, and 15–18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combination of Baum (US 2002/0065741 A1; Appeal 2019-001411 Application 14/224,079 3 May 30, 2002) and Treyz (US 7,343,320 B1; Mar. 11, 2008). Final Act. 6– 12. Claims 4, 5, 13, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combination of Baum, Treyz, and Skirpa (US 2010/0115430 A1; May 6, 2010). Final Act. 13–15. ISSUE 1. Did the Examiner err in concluding that the combination of Baum and Treyz teaches or suggests “receiv[ing] input indicating a movement of the selection area by dragging the selection area from a location within the full area of the image to the area associated with at least one recipient,” as recited in claim 2? ANALYSIS Independent claim 2 recites “receiv[ing] input indicating a movement of the selection area by dragging the selection area from a location within the full area of the image to the area associated with at least one recipient.” Independent claim 11 recites an identical limitation. The Examiner determines that the combination of Baum and Treyz teaches or suggests this limitation. The Examiner finds that Baum teaches “receiv[ing] [an] input indicating a movement of the selection area by dragging the selection area . . . to the area associated with at least one recipient” because it discloses “dragging [an] image to [a] persistent delivery bar.” Final Act. 8 (citing Baum ¶ 112, Fig. 10B) (emphasis omitted). The Examiner finds that Treyz teaches the remaining portion of the limitation, i.e., “from a location within the full area of the image” because it discloses a Appeal 2019-001411 Application 14/224,079 4 “full image with crop arrows.” Id. (citing Treyz Fig. 28) (emphasis omitted). Appellant argues that Baum does not teach this limitation because “Baum makes no teaching or suggestion anywhere of a selection area, which is defined in claim 2 as ‘a portion of said image less than the full area of said image,’ being moved, whether by dragging or some other means of movement.” Appeal Br. 9. The image being moved in Baum, Appellant argues, is an entire image, not a selection area. Id. at 11. Appellant further argues that even though Baum teaches cropping images, it “makes no mention or suggestion that a cropped portion of an image may be dragged anywhere,” and therefore “fails to teach or even hint at combining the cropping of an image with dragging a cropped portion of an image to another area.” Id. at 12 (citing Baum ¶ 72). In fact, Appellant argues, Baum “fails to teach or suggest any movement of a ‘selection area’ as presently disclosed and claimed.” Id. at 14. With regard to Treyz, Appellant argues that it “merely discloses using a pointer to click and drag cropping arrows 418 to desired locations.” Id. at 12 (citing Treyz 22:38–45, Fig. 28). Appellant contends that the claim language “requires that both the ‘selection area’ and the ‘full area of the image’ are displayed at the same time on the apparatus application window.” Reply Br. 3 (citing Spec. Fig. 4c) (emphasis added). Treyz, on the other hand, Appellant argues, “is limited to disclosing and teaching selecting a smaller area of an original image for cropping purposes by moving resize indicators 418 on the original image.” Id. at 4–5. According to Appellant, “[i]t is well understood that cropping necessarily deletes the non-selected portion of the original image from view,” and a “person skilled in the art Appeal 2019-001411 Application 14/224,079 5 could not be led by Treyz to retain the original image, as cropping achieves the complete opposite result of retaining the full area of the original image.” Id. at 5. Accordingly, Appellant concludes, both Baum and Treyz fail to teach or suggest the limitation. Appeal Br. 13. Appellant further argues that “an apparatus constructed according to the properly combined teachings of Baum and Treyz would suffer from the very problem addressed by the claimed invention,” i.e., “requir[ing] a user who wants to share a selection in an image to make the selection in the image (e.g., in the manner shown by Treyz) and save that selection as a new file (e.g., in a separate, additional, editing application or utility program, as noted in Baum), prior to specifying that new file to be sent to a recipient by way of some other, often unfamiliar, action.” Id. at 15 (citing Spec. ¶ 5). “Appellant submits that the apparatus of claim 2 provides important advantages over Baum and Treyz in its ease of use, especially on small screen devices such as mobile phones (e.g. 0010), and that these advantages support the patentability of claim 2 and its dependent claims over Baum and Treyz.” Id. In response, the Examiner explains that “[i]n combining the reference[s], [the] Examiner is using the resize indicators of Treyz’s Figure 28 on the image within the browser in Baum’s Figure 10B,” and “[t]he end result would be resizing the full image of Baum with the resize indicators of Trey[z] to a portion that is less than the full image and then dragging the portion to the delivery bar as taught by Baum.” Ans. 13. The Examiner determines that “the user would . . . drag and drop the reduce[d] size image to the delivery bar of Baum” only after “the full size image selection area of Baum [has been] modified by the resize indicators [taught by Treyz] to Appeal 2019-001411 Application 14/224,079 6 result in a portion of said image less than the full area of said image.” Id. at 14–15. According to the Examiner, “the events that occur once the continue button of Treyz Figure 28 is selected [are] not included in the combination” proposed by the Examiner. Id. at 18. We are not persuaded that the Examiner has erred. Appellant alleges Baum does not teach movement of a cropped portion of an image and Treyz’s teaching is limited to cropping an original image. Appeal Br. 11, 12. Appellant, however, does not address the rejection as articulated, in which the Examiner relies on certain combined teachings of the prior art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981) (“[T]he test [for obviousness] is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.”); see also In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (“Non-obviousness cannot be established by attacking references individually where the rejection is based upon the teachings of a combination of references.”). The Examiner instead determines that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have understood the combination as teaching “using the resize indicators of Treyz’s Figure 28 on the image within the browser in Baum’s Figure 10B,” resulting in first, “resizing the full image of Baum with the resize indicators of Trey[z] to a portion that is less than the full image[,] and then dragging the portion to the delivery bar as taught by Baum.” Ans. 13. Cropping and resizing images are well-known techniques in the prior art—Appellant concedes that in addition to Treyz, Baum itself teaches these techniques. Appeal Br. 12 (citing Baum ¶ 72). Appellant, however, argues that “cropping necessarily deletes the non-selected portion of the original image from view” (Reply Br. 5), without sufficiently explaining why a Appeal 2019-001411 Application 14/224,079 7 person of ordinary skill in the art would not have understood Treyz as teaching two independent steps of selecting a portion of the image and then cropping the image to delete the non-selected portion, as determined by the Examiner. Ans. 18 (finding that a person of ordinary skill in the art would only combine first step, ignoring “the events that occur once the continue button of Treyz Figure 28 is selected”). In fact, Treyz does disclose the cropping process as comprising two separate steps: The customer may crop images by using a pointer to click and drag cropping arrows 418 to desired locations. In the example of FIG. 28, crop arrow 418a has been dragged upwards from its nominal position at the bottom of image 406a, so that image 406a will be cropped as shown. When the customer has finished selecting which enlargements to order, the customer may click on continue option 420. Treyz 22:38–45 (emphasis added). Appellant does not dispute that Baum teaches dragging “an entire image” from one area to a second area that is associated with a recipient. Appeal Br. 11. Accordingly, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s determination that combining the portion-selection teaching of Treyz with the drag-and-drop teaching of Baum teaches or suggests the claim limitation at issue. Further, contrary to Appellant’s assertion, the claim does not require “that both the ‘selection area’ and the ‘full area of the image’ are displayed at the same time on the apparatus application window.” Reply Br. 3 (emphasis added). It merely requires “a movement of the selection area by dragging the selection area from a location within the full area of the image.” Appeal Br. 17 (emphasis added). There is no requirement that the full area of the image be displayed during the dragging step. As the Examiner explains, “the [proposed] combination simply modifies the image Appeal 2019-001411 Application 14/224,079 8 displayed in the browser application of Baum with resize indicators for dynamically editing full size images as shown in Treyz’s Figure 28.” Ans. 18. Under the Examiner’s rationale, the selected portion of image in the Baum browser could serve, similar to the icon 1006, “as a handle by which the user can ‘grab’ the [portion of the] image and drag it on to the desired distribution alias.” Baum ¶ 112. We are also not persuaded that the Examiner’s proposed combination “would suffer from the very problem addressed by the claimed invention.” Appeal Br. 15. We find no error with the Examiner’s determination that a person of ordinary skill in the art would ignore the steps disclosed in Treyz after a portion of the image is selected, and would not need to save the selection as a new file prior to using the teaching of Baum to send the selection to a recipient (Ans. 18), thereby avoiding the prior art problems discussed in the Specification. Lastly, we agree with the Examiner that “the claims fail to recite subject matter directed to small screen device[s,] such as mobile phones,” and therefore Appellant’s arguments related to the purported advantages of the claimed invention when implemented on a mobile device are misplaced. Id. We are therefore not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s finding that the combination of Baum and Treyz teaches or suggests “receiv[ing] input indicating a movement of the selection area by dragging the selection area from a location within the full area of the image to the area associated with at least one recipient,” as recited in claim 2. Because Appellant does not separately argue the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 11 and Appeal 2019-001411 Application 14/224,079 9 dependent claims 3–9 and 12–18 (Appeal Br. 15), we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 2–9 and 11–18. DECISION For the reasons above, we affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 2–9 and 11–18. Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Basis Affirmed Reversed 2, 3, 6–9, 11, 12, 15–18 103(a) Baum, Treyz 2, 3, 6–9, 11, 12, 15–18 4, 5, 13, 14 103(a) Baum, Treyz, Skirpa 4, 5, 13, 14 Overall Outcome 2–9, 11–18 TIME TO RESPOND No time for taking subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation