Xerox CorporationDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 26, 20212020000007 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 26, 2021) 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. 14/875,959 10/06/2015 Jeffrey J. Folkins 1776-0738 3824 76360 7590 03/26/2021 MAGINOT, MOORE & BECK LLP ONE INDIANA SQUARE SUITE 2200 INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46204 EXAMINER GRACE, KELSEY C ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 1742 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/26/2021 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE _______________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD _______________ Ex parte JEFFREY J. FOLKINS _______________ Appeal 2020-000007 Application 14/875,959 Technology Center 1700 _______________ Before MICHAEL P. COLAIANNI, GEORGE C. BEST, and DEBRA L. DENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges. DENNETT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–8, 10–15, and 21–23 of Application 14/875,959, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). For the reasons set forth below, we REVERSE. 1 In our Decision, we refer to the Specification filed Oct. 6, 2015 (“Spec.”) of Application 14/875,959 (“the ’959 Application”); the Final Office Action dated Nov. 13, 2018 (“Final Act.”); the Appeal Brief filed Mar. 26, 2019 (“Appeal Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer dated Aug. 6, 2019 (“Ans.”); and the Reply Brief filed Sept. 30, 2019 (“Reply Br.”). 2 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies Xerox Corp. as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2020-000007 Application 14/875,959 2 BACKGROUND The ’959 Application relates to three-dimensional object printers and, more particularly, to ejector-to-ejector pixel height normalization in these printers. Spec. ¶ 1. The ’959 Application describes that conventional three- dimensional object printers have multiple ejectors in their ejector heads that may provide inconsistent drop mass or drop volume. Id. ¶ 3. According to the ’959 Application, this leads to the undesirable deposition of material layers which are not uniform in height. Id. The ’959 Application describes normalizing the height of the layers by printing a test pattern, measuring the height of the drops of material that are formed from each ejector in the test pattern, and performing an actuation to compensate for any differences in the measured heights. Id. ¶ 21. According to the Specification, the described method achieves uniform printed material layer heights. Id. Claim 1 is representative of the ’959 Application’s claims and is reproduced below from the Appeal Brief’s Claims Appendix. 1. A method of calibrating ejectors in an ejector head of a three-dimensional object printer, the ejector head having a plurality of ejectors configured to eject drops of material towards a surface, the method comprising: operating the plurality of ejectors to eject drops of material to form a plurality of pixels corresponding to a test pattern on the surface, each ejector in the plurality of ejectors being operated to form a group of directly adjacent pixels in a cross-process direction in the test pattern, each group of adjacent pixels being at least n pixels wide in a cross-process direction for the printer; operating a sensor to measure heights of pixels for each group of adjacent pixels in the test pattern; and adjusting an operation of the plurality of ejectors by adjusting at least one ejector in the plurality of ejectors to change a mass of each drop subsequently ejected by the at least Appeal 2020-000007 Application 14/875,959 3 one ejector, the adjustment to the at least one ejector is made with reference to the measured heights for the group of directly adjacent pixels in which the at least one ejector formed pixels to normalize heights of layers of material formed by the plurality of ejectors. Appeal Br. 15 (Claims App.). REFERENCES The Examiner relies on the following prior art in rejecting the claims on appeal: Name Reference Date Batchelder US 5,653,925 Aug. 5, 1997 Kerekes US 6,492,651 B2 Dec. 10, 2002 Donaldson US 2013/0201245 A1 Aug. 8, 2013 REJECTION The Examiner maintains the rejection of claims 1–8, 10–15, and 21– 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Kerekes, in view of Donaldson, and further in view of Batchelder.3 Final Act. 3. DISCUSSION Our decision in this case turns on the Examiner’s interpretation of the claim term “directly adjacent.” The claims require, inter alia, that “each ejector in the plurality of ejectors being operated to form a group of directly adjacent pixels in a cross-process direction in the test pattern.” See Appeal Br. 15 (Claims App.). The Specification supports that the pixels in the test 3 Because this application was filed after the March 16, 2013, effective date of the America Invents Act, we refer to the AIA version of the statute. Appeal 2020-000007 Application 14/875,959 4 pattern are directly adjacent to each other. See Spec. ¶ 19, Fig. 2. Appellant challenges the Examiner’s interpretation. Appeal Br. 6. The Examiner finds that the Specification does not provide support for any difference in meaning between the claim terms “adjacent” and “directly adjacent.” Ans. 11. In view of this silence, the Examiner relies on “on conventional definitions” for the disputed claim terms without citing any particular dictionary definition. Id. According to the Examiner, “‘adjacent’ and ‘directly adjacent’ . . . mean the same thing.” Id.; see also Final Act. 9. During prosecution, an application’s claims are given their broadest reasonable scope consistent with the specification. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). The words used in a claim must be read in light of the specification, as it would have been interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. Id.; see also In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054–55 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (holding that during prosecution claim terms are given “the broadest reasonable meaning of the words in their ordinary usage as they would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, taking into account whatever enlightenment by way of definitions or otherwise that may be afforded by the written description contained in the applicant’s specification.”). “[W]ords in a claim are generally given their ordinary and customary meaning, [but] a patentee may choose to be his own lexicographer and use terms in a manner other than their ordinary meaning, as long as the special definition of the term is clearly stated in the patent specification or file history.” Vitronics Corp. v. Conceptronic, Inc., 90 F.3d 1576, 1582 (Fed. Cir. 1996). The Examiner’s interpretation of “directly adjacent” as having the same meaning as “adjacent” is inconsistent with the plain meaning of the Appeal 2020-000007 Application 14/875,959 5 adverb “directly” and how one or ordinary skill in the art would have understood the term in light of the Specification. See In re Baker Hughes, Inc., 215 F.3d 1297, 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (the PTO cannot adopt a construction that is “beyond that which was reasonable in light of the totality of the written description”). As Appellant persuasively argues, the Examiner’s interpretation impermissibly ignores the function of the adverb “directly” in the term “directly adjacent.” An adverb is “a modifier of a verb, an adjective, another adverb, a preposition, a phrase, a clause, or a sentence, expressing some relation of manner or quality, place, time, degree, number, cause, opposition, affirmation, or denial, and in English also serving to connect and to express comment on clause content.” Reply Br. 2 (citing https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adverb) (emphasis added by Appellant). Appellant also provides a definition of the term “directly adjacent” in the Specification. Appeal Br. 7 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 19, 20, Fig. 2). The Specification describes twelve ejectors, which eject twelve contiguous single drops for each of 12 lines. See Spec. ¶ 19, Fig. 2. The Specification describes that “[l]ines not touching each other are referred to as ‘not directly adjacent to one another.’” Id. ¶ 20. In the absence of physical support between directly adjacent lines, the Specification describes that the three- dimensional object printer test pattern cannot be used to achieve uniform printed material layer heights. Id. ¶ 28. The Specification clearly states that “if the [drop’s] edge transition is to air and not supported, the material would likely droop,” thereby leading to inefficiencies in providing “a reliable height at the center of the image.” Id. We agree with Appellant that, based on the Specification, “directly adjacent” means that “drops are touching or are contiguous” and “excludes Appeal 2020-000007 Application 14/875,959 6 the presence of space in the cross-process direction between directly adjacent pixels in a group of pixels formed by drops ejected from each ejector in the plurality of ejectors.” Appeal Br. 8; see also Vitronics, 90 F.3d at 1582. In the Final Office Action, the Examiner finds that Donaldson’s printed dashes in a test pattern describes or suggests the adjacent pixel arrangement required by the claims. Final Act. 4 (citing Donaldson ¶ 54). Appellant shows reversible error by the Examiner when finding that Donaldson discloses or suggests directly adjacent pixels. See Appeal Br. 7. One of ordinary skill in the art would not have considered Donaldson’s dashes, which are separated by a predetermined dash period distance, to teach or suggest touching or contiguous dashes. Id. at 15 (Claims App.). Therefore, Donaldson fails to disclose or suggest “each ejector in the plurality of ejectors being operated to form a group of directly adjacent pixels in a cross-process direction in the test pattern,” and does not render obvious independent claim 1 or any of the dependent claims. We do not sustain the rejection of claims 1, 2–8, 10–15, and 21–23 as obvious over Kerekes, in view of Donaldson, and further in view of Batchelder. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–8, 10– 15, 21–23 103 Kerekes, Donaldson, Batchelder 1–8, 10–15, 21–23 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation