Application Solutions (Electronics and Vision) Ltd

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 2, 2021

2019004534 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 2, 2021)

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. 14/338,767 07/23/2014 Jörg Schrepfer 2013P01945US 1012 23122 7590 03/02/2021 RATNERPRESTIA 2200 Renaissance Blvd Suite 350 King of Prussia, PA 19406 EXAMINER PARK, SUNGHYOUN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2484 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/02/2021 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): PCorrespondence@ratnerprestia.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JÖRG SCHREPFER and TREVOR KELLAWAY Appeal 2019-004534 Application 14/338,767 Technology Center 2400 Before JEREMY J. CURCURI, GREGG I. ANDERSON, and IRVIN E. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judges. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, and 3–16, which are all of the pending claims. See Non-Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We Affirm. 1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Application Solutions (Electronics and Vision) LTD. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2019-004534 Application 14/338,767 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to a video camera and a video receiver of a video monitoring system. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A video camera of a video monitoring system comprising: an image generation unit which generates a sequence of digital images (DI) having watchdog information data (WID) embedded among a plurality of pixels forming each of the digital images of the sequence to supervise said sequence of digital images (DI), the watchdog information data (WID) being selected from the group consisting of video settings, register settings, histographic data of the sequence of digital images, camera type, and camera identification; a separation unit adapted to remove watchdog information data (WID) from the digital images (DI) in the sequence received from said image generation unit and to store the removed watchdog information data in a memory; an information data encoder connected to the memory and adapted to encode the watchdog information data (WID) to generate information blocks; a video compression unit adapted to compress the digital images (DI) received from the image generation unit to generate compressed digital images consisting of image blocks; and a data transmission unit adapted to transmit the generated image blocks received from the video compression unit along with the information blocks generated by said information data encoder. Appeal 2019-004534 Application 14/338,767 3 REFERENCES The Examiner relies on the following prior art: Name Reference Date Sporer US 2001/0024472 A1 Sept. 27, 2001 Williams US 2005/0180567 A1 Aug. 18, 2005 Sekiguchi US 2006/0013321 A1 Jan. 19, 2006 Albert US 2006/0125922 A1 June 15, 2006 Maertens US 2007/0067472 A1 Mar. 22, 2007 Naaman US 2007/0189333 A1 Aug. 16, 2007 Kister US 2008/0100705 A1 May 1, 2008 Leprovost US 2009/0201990 A1 Aug. 13, 2009 Zhou US 2013/0044230 A1 Feb. 21, 2013 Takahashi US 2013/0321562 A1 Dec. 5, 2013 REJECTIONS Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis 1, 3, 7 103 Leprovost, Naaman, Kister, Albert 4, 5, 16 103 Leprovost, Naaman, Kister, Albert, Zhou 6 103 Leprovost, Naaman, Kister, Albert, Sporer 8, 9, 12–15 103 Sekiguchi, Williams 10 103 Sekiguchi, Williams, Maertens 11 103 Sekiguchi, Williams, Takahashi OPINION Appellant argues only the rejections of claim 1 and claim 8 with particularity. Appeal Br. 6–7. Appellant argues claims 3–7 and 16 based on claim 1 and argues claims 9–15 based on claim 8. Id. Thus, our analysis below of Appellant’s arguments regarding claims 1 and 8 are dispositive. Appeal 2019-004534 Application 14/338,767 4 We are not persuaded of error in the rejection of claim 1 for the reasons we explain below. Regarding claim 1, Appellant argues “[t]he Examiner ignores that neither Kister nor Albert teaches embedding [watchdog information data] in pixels of a digital image” and “Naaman fails . . . to teach embedding any of the claimed categories of watchdog information in pixels of a digital image.” Appeal Br. 9. Appellant’s arguments are unpersuasive because they do not rebut the Examiner’s findings. The Examiner finds Naaman teaches embedding the watchdog information data in the pixels of a digital image and finds Kister teaches the specifically recited watchdog information data. Ans. 6–7. Moreover, Appellant’s arguments are unpersuasive because one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually when the rejection is based on a combination of references. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981); see also In re Merck & Co. Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Thus, the relevant inquiry is whether the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to ordinarily skilled artisans in light of the combined teachings of the references. Each reference cited by the Examiner must be read, not in isolation, but for what it fairly teaches in combination with the prior art as a whole. Appellant also contends “neither Kister nor Albert provides any reason to modify Leprovost or Naaman to embed any of the specifically claimed categories of watchdog information in pixels of a digital image.” and “there is no reason based on Naaman, Kister, Albert, or any other reference which would motivate one[] of ordinary skill in the art to modify Leprovost to embed any of the specifically claimed categories of watchdog information in pixels of a digital image.” Appeal Br. 9. The Examiner Appeal 2019-004534 Application 14/338,767 5 determines “[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the application's invention to modify the teachings of Leprovost, Naaman and Kister with the above teachings of Albert in order to provide compatibility of video of decoding even different vendors. Ans. 8. Appellant’s arguments are unpersuasive because the Examiner’s reasons for combining the reference teachings need not appear in, or be expressly described by one or more of the references on which the Examiner relies. Instead, a reason to combine teachings from the prior art “may be found in explicit or implicit teachings within the references themselves, from the ordinary knowledge of those skilled in the art, or from the nature of the problem to be solved.” WMS Gaming Inc. v. Int’l Game Tech., 184 F.3d 1339, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (citing In re Rouffet, 149 F.3d 1350, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 1998)). “Under the correct [obviousness] analysis, any need or problem known in the field of endeavor at the time of invention and addressed by the patent can provide a reason for combining the elements in the manner claimed.” KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420 (2007). Appellant does not persuasively rebut the Examiner’s reasons for combining the reference teachings. See Ans. 4–8. Appellant also argues “Naaman fails to disclose, teach, or suggest removing watchdog information from media content.” Appeal Br. 10. Appellant contends “[o]ne of ordinary skill in the art would understand that optical character recognition does not remove the reference time from the media content[, so] after the ‘extracting’ of Naaman, the reference time of Naaman remains with the media content, and is not removed from the media content.” Id. On this record, we are not persuaded that claim 1’s “remove” requires that the WID information not remain with the media content, as Appellant’s Appeal 2019-004534 Application 14/338,767 6 argument presumes the claim to require. Arguments must be commensurate in scope with the actual claim language. In re Self, 671 F.2d 1344, 1348 (CCPA 1982). Although claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims.2 See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Particularly in the digital realm, information may be removed (i.e., “extracted,” as in removing information to another location) without removing that which defines the information. Moreover, as to Appellant’s assertion that “[o]ne of ordinary skill in the art would understand that optical character recognition does not remove the reference time from the media content[, so] after the ‘extracting’ of Naaman, the reference time of Naaman remains with the media content, and is not removed from the media content” (Appeal Br. 10), we are not persuaded Naaman fails to at least suggest Appellant’s implied narrower construction of “remove” (see, e.g., Naaman ¶ 51 (“The decoder 122 may perform optical character recognition (OCR), voice recognition (VR), 1-D barcode decoding, 2-D barcode decoding, DTMF or modem decoding and/or the like.)). We determine a skilled artisan would have understood Naaman’s “extraction” to at least suggest techniques where content that defines the extracted information is not removed as well as techniques where content 2 Should further prosecution ensue, the Examiner might consider whether Appellant’s amendment replacing “separate” with “remove” is even supported by Appellant’s Specification. See Amendment filed March 1, 2018. The Amendment does not identify specification support for this claim amendment, and the portion of the Specification identified in Appellant’s Appeal Brief as support (Appeal Br. 2 (citing Spec. p. 13, ll. 8–15)) does not mention “remove,” let alone define the term such that it requires that the WID no longer remain with the media content. Appeal 2019-004534 Application 14/338,767 7 that defines the extracted information is removed, and Appellant’s argument provides no evidence to the contrary, only a bald assertion as to what one of ordinary skill in the art would understand OCR to mean. Appeal Br. 10 (“the reference time of Naaman remains with the media content, and is not removed from the media content”). We will not speculate as to other results produced by Naaman’s exemplary extraction methods. See Naaman ¶ 51. Appellant’s additional argument that “Naaman provides no reason to modify Leprovost to include a separation unit that removes watchdog information data from a digital image” (Appeal Br. 10) is unpersuasive because, as explained above, a reason to combine teachings from the prior art “may be found in explicit or implicit teachings within the references themselves, from the ordinary knowledge of those skilled in the art, or from the nature of the problem to be solved.” WMS Gaming, 184 F.3d at 1355. Regarding claim 8, the Examiner cites Williams for claim 8’s “deactivat[ing] a display connected to the video receiver if a problem is identified with the watchdog information data (WID).” Ans. 14. Appellant argues Williams is not analogous art. Appeal Br. 11. Appellant contends “Williams is entirely silent regarding any manner of addressing malfunctioning cameras of a video monitoring system[and is thus] not analogous under the second prong.” Id. at 11–12. Two separate tests define the scope of analogous prior art: (1) whether the art is from the same field of endeavor, regardless of the problem addressed and, (2) if the reference is not within the field of the inventor’s endeavor, whether the reference still is reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor is involved. In re Klein, 647 F.3d 1343, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2011). Regarding the second prong, references are selected as being reasonably pertinent to the problem Appeal 2019-004534 Application 14/338,767 8 based on the judgment of a person having ordinary skill in the art. In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1447 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (“[I]t is necessary to consider ‘the reality of the circumstances,’—in other words, common sense—in deciding in which fields a person of ordinary skill would reasonably be expected to look for a solution to the problem facing the inventor.”) (quoting In re Wood, 599 F.2d 1032, 1036 (CCPA 1979)). In response, the Examiner finds as follows: Williams teaches comparator compares the secure timestamp with the time indicated by the secure time source. If the difference between the time indicated by the secure time source and the secure timestamp is greater than a defined delay, or if detector does not detect a secure timestamp in the first place when it otherwise knows that one should exist, comparator sends a signal to display driver to disable the display of the content. The detecting a secure timestamp can be interpreted as identifying a problem. (e.g. See, Para.[0031]). Ans. 23. We are persuaded that the Examiner’s finding is reasonable based on the foregoing and therefore disagree with Appellant’s contention that “[t]he Examiner’s Answer provides no basis from which it could be concluded that Williams is analogous to the present invention.” Reply Br. 3. In view of the foregoing, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claim 1 and 8, which is dispositive of this appeal. Appeal 2019-004534 Application 14/338,767 9 DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 3, 7 103 Leprovost, Naaman, Kister, Albert 1, 3, 7 4, 5, 16 103 Leprovost, Naaman, Kister, Albert, Zhou 4, 5, 16 6 103 Leprovost, Naaman, Kister, Albert, Sporer 6 8, 9, 12–15 103 Sekiguchi, Williams 8, 9, 12–15 10 103 Sekiguchi, Williams, Maertens 10 11 103 Sekiguchi, Williams, Takahashi 11 Overall Outcome 1, 3–16 TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE 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