Ex Parte Chang-Chian et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 31, 201713451018 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 31, 2017) 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. 13/451,018 04/19/2012 Po-Chuan Chang-Chian SUND-1404 7373 23995 7590 Rabin & Berdo, PC 1101 14TH STREET, NW SUITE 500 WASHINGTON, DC 20005 EXAMINER SHAH, SUJIT ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2624 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/02/2017 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): firm @ rabinberdo .com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte PO-CHUAN CHANG-CHIAN, CHUN-YI CHOU, WING-KAI TANG, CHING-CHUN LIN, and CHIH-WEI TANG Appeal 2017-005826 Application 13/451,01s1 Technology Center 2600 Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, DANIEL J. GALLIGAN, and DAVID J. CUTITTAII, Administrative Patent Judges. GALLIGAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Introduction Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1—5, 7—15, and 17—22, which are all of the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Claims 6 and 16 have been cancelled. We AFFIRM.2 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Novatek Microelectronics Corp. App. Br. 2. 2 Our Decision refers to Appellants’ Appeal Brief filed August 9, 2016 (“App. Br.”); Appellants’ Reply Brief filed February 22, 2017 (“Reply Br.”); Examiner’s Answer mailed December 22, 2016 (“Ans.”); Examiner’s Appeal 2017-005826 Application 13/451,018 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Claims on Appeal Claims 1 and 11 are independent claims. Claim 1 is reproduced below: 1. A data transmission method applied in a display, the display comprise[s] a display driving system and a display panel, the display driving system having a host controller and n display drivers, wherein the n display drivers are for driving the display, and n is a natural number greater than 1, the data transmission method comprising: providing a communication link under mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) between the host controller and the n display drivers; determining n virtual channel values Vcl, Vc2, ..., and Vcn corresponding to the respective n display drivers; receiving a control command via the communication link under MIPI from the host controller, wherein the control command comprises a virtual channel parameter; an ith display driver among the n display drivers operating according to the control command when the virtual channel parameter of the control command indicates an ith virtual channel value Vci among the n virtual channel values, wherein i is a natural number smaller than or equal ton; and the remaining n-1 display drivers among the n display drivers discarding the control command when the virtual channel parameter of the control command indicates the ith virtual channel value Vci. References Schindler US 2008/0234005 A1 Sept. 25,2008 Matsuda US 2010/0309173 A1 Dec. 9,2010 Advisory Action mailed February 2, 2016 (“Adv. Act.”); and Final Office Action mailed October 22, 2015 (“Final Act.”). 2 Appeal 2017-005826 Application 13/451,018 Boucher Diard Tai Yuan US 2011/0157193 A1 US 7,995,003 B1 US 2012/0110215 A1 US 2012/0242628 A1 June 30, 2011 Aug. 9,2011 May 3, 2012 Sept. 27, 2012 Examiner s Rejections Claims 1, 2, 8—12, and 18—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Boucher, Diard, and Matsuda. Final Act. 2—15. Claims 3, 4, 13, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Boucher, Diard, Matsuda, and Yuan. Id. at 16—22. Claims 5 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Boucher, Diard, Matsuda, and Tai. Id. at 22—24. Claims 7, 17, 21, and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Boucher, Diard, Matsuda, and Schindler. Id. at 24— 29. Our review in this appeal is limited only to the above rejections and the issues raised by Appellants. Arguments not made are waived. See 37 C.F.R. §§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv), 41.39(a)(1). ANALYSIS We disagree with Appellants’ contentions with respect to independent claims 1 and 11, and we adopt as our own (1) the Examiner’s findings and reasoning set forth in the Office Action from which this appeal is taken, (2) the Examiner’s reasoning set forth in the Advisory Action, and (3) the Examiner’s reasoning set forth in the Examiner’s Answer. We highlight the following points for emphasis. Appellants contend the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Boucher and Matsuda teaches “n display drivers ... for driving [a] 3 Appeal 2017-005826 Application 13/451,018 display . . . [and] providing a communication link under mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) between the host controller and the n display drivers,” as recited in claim 1 and similarly recited in claim 11. App. Br. 5— 6; Reply Br. 2—\. Specifically, Appellants argue Boucher teaches “three GPUs are coupled to an equivalent number of display devices, not coupled to a single display device” and Boucher “does not disclose a GPU having a host controller and multiple display drivers for driving the display.” Reply Br. 4. Appellants further argue “Matsuda describes a communication link under MIPI for a mobile device, and fails to disclose the communication link under MIPI in a display driving system.” App. Br. 5 (emphases omitted). Additionally, Appellants argue “nothing in any of the prior art references . . . provides any teaching that may have motivated one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Boucher, Matsuda, or Diard to provide” the claimed features. App. Br. 6 (emphases omitted). We are not persuaded. The Examiner finds, and we agree, Boucher teaches multiple display drivers, i.e., “GPUO, GPU1 and GPU2,” which “render[] the graphics of display 107.” Final Act. 30 (citing Boucher 130, Fig. 3); Adv. Act. 2 (citing Boucher Fig. 2); see Boucher Fig. 1, || 24, 27— 30. The Examiner further finds (Ans. 7; Adv. Act. 2; Final Act. 6, 30), and we agree, Matsuda teaches “MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) standards that prescribe ... an interface between an application processor and a peripheral device,” e.g., “[a] display drive device” (Matsuda 115). Appellants’ argument that Boucher’s “three GPUs are coupled to an equivalent number of display devices, not coupled to a single display device” (Reply Br. 4) does not address the Examiner’s finding that Boucher teaches embodiments in which a single display is driven by multiple GPUs. 4 Appeal 2017-005826 Application 13/451,018 Specifically, the Examiner finds, in Figure 3 of Boucher, a single display — DisplayO 107 — is driven by multiple GPUs — GPUO 101, GPU1 103, and GPU2 105. Final Act. 30 (citing Boucher 130, Fig. 3); Adv. Act. 2 (citing Boucher Fig. 2); see also Boucher Fig. 1, || 24, 27—30. Appellants do not present persuasive arguments addressing Boucher’s single display driven by multiple GPUs. Further, we disagree with Appellants’ argument that Matsuda “fails to disclose the communication link under MIPI in a display driving system.” App. Br. 5 (emphasis omitted). Paragraph 15 of Matsuda teaches according to the MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) standards that prescribe common specifications for a so-called CPU interface, which is an interface between an application processor and a peripheral device of a mobile device, the application processor functions as a host to control operation of the peripheral device. A display drive device which uses a control signal usually starts display operation as defined by a command control. Such the display drive device starts screen display in response to a start-up command transmitted to the display drive device from the host after power source is activated. That is, Matsuda teaches MIPI standards provide communication between hosts and peripherals and Matsuda further teaches, or at least suggests, those peripherals are display drive devices. Furthermore, Appellants’ arguments do not address the Examiner’s combination of Boucher, which teaches that a host interfaces with a display driver, with Matsuda, which teaches MIPI interfaces, to teach collectively that the host interfaces with the display driver using a MIPI interface. Final Act. 6, 30; Ans. 7. Additionally, Appellants’ argument that “nothing in any of the prior art references . . . provides any teaching that may have motivated one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Boucher, Matsuda, or Diard” (App. Br. 6 5 Appeal 2017-005826 Application 13/451,018 (emphases omitted)) is not persuasive because demonstrating an express teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art is not required in determining obviousness under KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418—419 (2007). The Examiner articulates reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the combination of Boucher and Matsuda, i.e., “reduc[ing] the amount of space taken by wiring and to prevent breaking of wiring by utilizing same bus lines with different peripheral devices” (Final Act. 6, 30), and “provid[ing] communication interface between the host processor and the n display drivers in order to achieve a high-speed transmission between the host processor and the n display drivers with less lines and with less power consumption” (Ans. 7). Appellants do not provide any persuasive argument or evidence addressing the Examiner’s articulated reasons for the combination. Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred by improperly combining Boucher and Matsuda or erred by finding the combination of Boucher and Matsuda teaches or suggests the disputed limitations of claims 1 and 11. Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claims 1 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We likewise sustain the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of claims 2—5, 7—10, 12—15, and 17—22, for which Appellants offer no additional persuasive arguments for patentability. See App. Br. 7. DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—5, 7—15, and 17-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 6 Appeal 2017-005826 Application 13/451,018 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. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation