Ex Parte Chabreck et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 31, 2017

13171182 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 31, 2017)

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.
13/171,182 06/28/2011 THOMAS E. CHABRECK 8786-US 1 9025-0221 5085
66638 7590
MICHAEL A. NELSON
TEKTRONIX, INC.
14150 SW KARL BRAUN DRIVE
P.O. BOX 500, M/S 50-LAW
BEAVERTON, OR 97077
EXAMINER
TEITELBAUM, MICHAEL E
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2422
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/02/2017 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):
j ennifer.parker @ tektronix.com
docketing@techlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte THOMAS E. CHABRECK, BENJAMIN T. HUMBLE,
MICHAEL S. OVERTON, and ROBERT W. PARISH
Appeal 2016-003481
Application 13/171,182
Technology Center 2400
Before JEAN R. HOMERE, KEVIN C. TROCK, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2016-003481
Application 13/171,182
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1—29, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
THE INVENTION
The application is directed to “a system for generating video test
pattern signals from definitions contained in a text-based definition file.”
(Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is exemplary:
1. A system for generating test patterns, the system comprising:
an input structured to accept a text definition file that contains
a series of attributes of a particular test pattern to be generated,
the particular text definition file including one or more segment
description statements;
a generator structured to retrieve the series of attributes from
the text definition file and populate a first memory with segment
description codes describing segments of the particular test
pattern based on the retrieved segment description statements;
and
a segment processor structured to produce an output of a
series of portions of the particular test pattern by, for each of the
portions of the particular test pattern, creating the portion from
the segment description codes in the first memory.
1 Appellants identify Tektronix, Inc. as the real party in interest. (See App.
Br. 3.)
2
Appeal 2016-003481
Application 13/171,182
THE REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Heller et al. US 4,268,851 May 19, 1981
Bloomfield US 4,970,595 Nov. 13, 1990
Imagawa et al. US 2002/0031262 Al Mar. 14, 2002
Extron Electronics, VTG 400D/400 DVI User’s Manual (Rev. C
April 2009) (“Extron Manual”)
THE REJECTIONS
1. Claims 1—7, 11—16, and 18—28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over the Extron Manual and Imagawa. (See Final
Act. 2-18.)
2. Claims 8, 10, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over the Extron Manual, Imagawa, and Bloomfield. (See Final
Act. 18-20.)
3. Claim 9 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over the Extron Manual, Imagawa, and Heller. (See Final Act.
21.)
ANALYSIS
Appellants’ application describes a method for generating test pattern
signals from definitions contained in a text-based file. (See Spec. 12.) The
Specification contrasts this with three prior art approaches: circuits that
include “hard-coded” formats for the patterns, memory storing a series of
binary equations that may be executed to generate patterns, and test patterns
stored as bitmapped files. (See id. 14.)
3
Appeal 2016-003481
Application 13/171,182
Appellants’ claim 1 requires a “generator structured to retrieve the
series of attributes from the text definition file and populate a first memory
with segment description codes describing segments of the particular test
pattern based on the retrieved segment description statements.” The
Examiner finds this feature in the Extron Manual and, in particular, the
Examiner finds the claimed “series of attributes” in the reference’s “front
porch, back porch, active video and sync pulses which all represent various
segments of a video signal.” (Ans. 23.) The Examiner finds that “[sjince
the configuration file is used as a test pattern, these segments are segments
of a particular test pattern.” (Id.)
We agree with Appellants that the cited material does not show or
suggest the subject claim limitation. Specifically, we agree with Appellants
that the “front porch, back porch, active video and sync pulses” are not
“attributes from [a] text definition file [that] populate a first memory with
segment description codes describing segments of the particular test
pattern.” As Appellants persuasively argue, “the configuration setting[s]
[are] merely setting a scan rate and viewing area for the video” and “[do] not
describe any segment of a particular test pattern to be generated.” (App. Br.
15.) While the settings define the active video area in which a test pattern
may be displayed (see, e.g., page 2—25 of the Extron Manual), they do not
“describe[e] segments of the particular test pattern,” as required by the
claim. We do not agree with the Examiner that “the configuration file is
used as a test pattern”; instead, one of skill in the art would understand the
test pattern to be the pattern displayed on the screen (see pages A-5 to A-20
of the Extron Manual for examples of test patterns), while the configuration
file only determines where the pattern may be displayed.
4
Appeal 2016-003481
Application 13/171,182
We accordingly reverse the Section 103(a) rejection of claim 1 and its
dependents 2—11, as well as the Section 103(a) rejections of the remaining
claims, 12—29, each of which similarly requires a text definition file with
attributes of a test pattern. We do not reach Appellants’ other arguments.
DECISION
The rejections of claims 1—29 are reversed.
REVERSED
5