Thomas Heinke et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Oct 3, 2019

15208986 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Oct. 3, 2019)

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.
15/208,986 07/13/2016 Thomas Heinke 56581.109.4 2691
88676 7590 10/03/2019
Fredrikson & Byron, P.A.
Intellectual Property Group, Fluke Patents
200 South 6th Street, Suite 4000
Minneapolis, MN 55402
EXAMINER
KAPLAN VERBITSKY, GAIL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2855
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/03/2019 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):
ip@fredlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte THOMAS HEINKE and JAMES T. PICKETT

Appeal 2019-000351
Application 15/208,986
Technology Center 2800
____________

Before ROMULO H. DELMENDO, LINDA M. GAUDETTE, and
DONNA M. PRAISS, Administrative Patent Judges.

DELMENDO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

The Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final decision to reject claims 1–20.2 We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42 and as identified (Fluke Corporation) in the Application
Data Sheet filed July 13, 2016. Fluke Corporation is also listed as the real
party in interest (Appeal Brief filed June 19, 2018 (“Appeal Br.”) at 3).
2 See Appeal Br. 6–23; Reply Brief filed October 15, 2018 (“Reply Br.”) at
2–7; Final Office Action entered November 9, 2017 (“Final Act.”) at 2–12;
Examiner’s Answer entered August 13, 2018 (“Ans.”) at 2–13.
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Application 15/208,986

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BACKGROUND
The subject matter on appeal relates to a thermal imaging system
including a camera that gathers and displays temperature data as graphical
plots and infrared images (Specification filed July 13, 2016 (“Spec.”) ¶¶ 6–
10). According to the Inventors, the system allows storing an entire infrared
image associated with a graphical temperature plot of each data point or a
portion of the infrared image that is less than the entire image (id. ¶¶ 67, 74;
Drawings filed July 13, 2016, Figs. 4A–4D).
Representative claim 1 is reproduced from the Claims Appendix to the
Appeal Brief, with key limitations highlighted, as follows:
1. A thermal imaging system comprising:
an infrared camera module;
a memory;
a processor configured to:
gather temperature data from a source of temperature data
via the infrared camera module at a plurality of
times corresponding to a specified time interval,
generate a graphical plot of the gathered temperature data
over time,
save the graphical plot of the gathered temperature data in
memory, and
save in memory one or more infrared images associated
with the graphical plot, each of the one or more
images having been obtained at the same time or
approximately the same time as a corresponding
one or more data points in the saved graphical plot,
wherein
the one or more data points corresponding to the one or
more associated infrared images is fewer than all
of the data points in the saved graphical plot such
that the number of data points in the saved
graphical plot is greater than the number of the
one or more associated infrared images saved in
memory; and
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a digital display configured to display an infrared image of a
scene and the generated graphical plot.
(Appeal Br. 24 (emphasis added)). Claims 12 and 19, which are the only
other independent claims on appeal, recite the same or similar limitations as
those highlighted above in claim 1 (id. at 21, 22–23).
REJECTIONS ON APPEAL
The claims on appeal stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as follows:3
A. Claims 1–7, 12, and 16–19 as unpatentable over Haigh et al.4
(“Haigh”), Tajima,5 Bilcu et al.6 (“Bilcu”), Mault,7 and Warnke
et al.8 (“Warnke”);
B. Claims 8 and 9 as unpatentable over Haigh, Tajima, Bilcu,
Mault, Warnke, and Boland et al.9 (“Boland”);
C. Claims 10, 11, 13, 14, and 20 as unpatentable over Haigh,
Tajima, Bilcu, Mault, Warnke, and Sheard et al.10 (“Sheard”);
D. Claims 11 and 13–15 as unpatentable over Haigh, Tajima,

3 The Examiner states in the Answer (Ans. 11) that the rejections under
35 U.S.C. §§ 112, ¶ 6, and 101, as set forth in the Final Office Action (Final
Act. 2–4), have been withdrawn. Therefore, these withdrawn rejections are
not before us.
4 US 8,013,304 B2, issued September 6, 2001.
5 US 2013/0161526 A1, published June 27, 2013.
6 US 2009/0245633 A1, published October 1, 2009.
7 US 2002/0077766 A1, published June 20, 2002.
8 US 2010/0014746 A1, published January 21, 2010.
9 US 7,729,561 B1, issued June 1, 2010.
10 US 8,235,590 B2, issued August 7, 2012.
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Bilcu, Mault, Warnke, and Fontenot et al.11 (“Fontenot”).
(Ans. 2–13; Final Act. 4–12).
DISCUSSION
The Examiner finds that Haigh describes a device for monitoring an
object’s temperature over time using a thermal imaging camera but
acknowledges several differences between the prior art device and the
thermal imaging system recited in claim 1 (Ans. 2–7). In particular, the
Examiner finds one difference to be that “Haigh does not explicitly teach the
limitation including capture and save in memory an infrared image of the
scene at one or more, but fewer than all, of the times at which the
temperature data is [sic] gathered, as stated in claim 1” (id. at 4). In an
attempt to resolve this difference, the Examiner relies on Bilcu, which was
found to teach a device that captures and saves into memory plural infrared
images of a scene over time, but the device automatically deletes low quality
images (id. at 4–5). Based on these findings, the Examiner concludes:
[I]t would have been obvious to one skilled in the art at the
time the invention was made, to modify the device/ method,
disclosed by Haigh, so as to capture the images less than all the
time, as taught by Bilcu, so as to select only desired (good)
images and reject undesired (bad) ones, in order to achieve more
accurate results of obtaining data and more usable images for the
particular purposes.
(Ans. 5).
The Appellant contends, inter alia, that Haigh cannot possibly
disclose the disputed claim limitations highlighted in claim 1 above (i.e.,
“one or more data points corresponding to the one or more associated

11 US 5,910,816, issued June 8, 1999.
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infrared images is fewer than all of the data points in the saved graphical
plot such that the number of data points in the saved graphical plot is greater
than the number of the one or more associated infrared images saved in
memory”) because, contrary to claim 1, data from stored images are used to
generate Haigh’s trend graph in the first place (Appeal Br. 11–12). Thus, the
Appellant argues that “[e]ven if Bilcu discloses discarding low quality
images, the combination of Bilcu and Haigh would result in discarding poor
quality images prior to storing the images so that the poor quality images
would not be available for selection in creating a trend plot” (id. at 12).
We agree with the Appellant. Haigh describes an infrared imaging
system that captures and downloads to a computer a series of thermographic
images that are used to create trend plots of temperature data contained in
those images (Haigh, col. 1, ll. 19–22; col. 2, ll. 21–24). According to Haigh,
one or more thermographic tools (e.g., a spot temperature tool) are applied to
retrieve the desired temperatures of interest from each image to include in
the trend plot (id. at col. 2, ll. 28–41).
Bilcu, on the other hand, relates generally to image processing (Bilcu
¶ 1)—not infrared imaging, as the Examiner finds (Ans. 4–5). Specifically,
Bilcu teaches that mobile devices are equipped with digital cameras for
capturing still images and videos, but that image quality estimation is an
important task in, e.g., mobile printing (id. ¶ 2). Thus, Bilcu teaches that “the
image quality estimation can be applied in order to automatically delete
images having a low quality” such that “when image capturing is in process,
images having a low quality are not necessarily saved in the memory of the
mobile device” (id.).
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Thus, even if a person having ordinary skill in the art were to have
implemented Bilcu’s technique of automatically deleting low quality images
in the configuration of Haigh’s system, the resulting system based on the
combination of Haigh and Bilcu would only affect the data used to generate
the trend plot (i.e., the “graphical plot” recited in claim 1)—not any infrared
image that is created from “fewer than all of the data points in the saved
graphical plot” as required by claim 1.
In the Answer, the Examiner asserts that “depending on the intended
use of the trend plot in the future, still a few images may need to be removed
from the trend plot . . . and the updated trend plot (with the fewer images
than before) then could be stored again” (Ans. 12). But, as the Appellant
points out (Reply Br. 3–4), such a possible scenario would still not result in
a system as recited in claim 1 because the infrared images would be based
on the same data contained in the updated trend plot.
For these reasons and those given by the Appellant, we do not sustain
the Examiner’s rejection as maintained against claim 1 and claims dependent
therefrom. As the two other independent claims (i.e., 12 and 19) contain the
same or similar limitations highlighted above in reproduced claim 1, we also
do not sustain the rejection of the remaining claims.

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CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–7, 12, 16–
19
103(a) Haigh, Tajima,
Bilcu, Mault,
Warnke
1–7, 12,
16–19
8, 9 103(a) Haigh, Tajima,
Bilcu, Mault,
Warnke, Boland
8, 9
10, 11, 13,
14, 20
103(a) Haigh, Tajima,
Bilcu, Mault,
Warnke, Sheard
10, 11, 13,
14, 20
11, 13–15 103(a) Haigh, Tajima,
Bilcu, Mault,
Warnke, Fontenot
11, 13–15
Overall
Outcome
1–20

REVERSED