Ex Parte Daily et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 14, 2016

13671276 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 14, 2016)

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.
13/671,276 11/07/2012 Gordon Daily 11AB101-US-D 3104
70640 7590 12/16/2016
ROCKWELL AUTOMATION, INC / SR
Attn: Linda Kasulke
1201 S. 2nd Street
E-7C19
Milwaukee, WI 53204
EXAMINER
YU, JIAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2142
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/16/2016 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):
s arah @ setterroche. com
u spto @ setterroche .com
raintellectu alproperty @ ra.rockwell .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GORDON DAILY, DAVID THOMAS, STEVEN KOWAL,
KEVIN KRUEGER, KEVIN SMITH, DOUGLAS REICHARD,
MATTHEW DELISLE, JOSEPH BALISTRIERI, MATTHEW
BUMGARDNER, DAVID RIDENOUR
Appeal 2016-001994
Application 13/671,276
Technology Center 2100
Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, JOHN P. PINKERTON, and
GARTH D. BAER, Administrative Patent Judges.
MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2016-001994
Application 13/671,276
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1—21. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Exemplary Claim
Exemplary claim 1 under appeal reads as follows (emphasis added):
1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media
having stored thereon program instructions to facilitate the
computer aided design of human machine interface animated
graphical elements, wherein the program instructions, when
executed by a computing system, direct the computing system
to at least:
display a graphical element having dimensions associated
with a characteristic of an industrial element within an
industrial automation environment;
identity a change in the characteristic of the industrial
element; and
modify a dimension of the graphical element to visually
represent the change in the characteristic of the industrial
element, wherein the dimension comprises a gradient stop
point.
Rejection on Appeal
The Examiner rejected claims 1—21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Gilbert et al. (US 2007/0165031 Al;
July 19, 2007), and Motter (US 2008/0231637 Al; Sept. 25, 2008).* 1
1 The patentability of claims 2—21 is not separately argued from that of claim
1. See Appeal Br. 5—6. Except for our ultimate decision, claims 2—21 are
not discussed further herein.
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Application 13/671,276
Appellants ’ Contentions
1. Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because:
The Appellant respectfully asserts that the Examiner has erred by
failing to provide a reason to combine Gilbert and Motter, as
required for a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Specifically,
the final [Office Action] states that it would have been obvious
to use gradient stop points as taught by Motter into Gilbert
because both Gilbert and Motter are related to a user interface for
image display and one would have been motivated to make such
a combination to efficiently create a gradient fill. However,
Gilbert does not discuss improving gradient fill. Gilbert
discusses modifying tank fill level by using colors and rectangle
height and width. Therefore, combining Gilbert and Motter to
efficiently create a gradient fill is not a reason to combine
Gilbert and Motter.
Moreover, even if efficiently creating a gradient fill was a reason
to combine Gilbert and Motter, the combination of Gilbert and
Motter would not result in a more efficient creation of gradient
fill. Gilbert does not discuss efficiently modifying an animated
characteristic, such as tank fill, by modifying existing
characteristics in the gradient fill. Using the idea of gradient
stop points, as discussed in Motter, would not result in a more
efficient gradient fill since Gilbert never discusses using a
gradient fill to show a characteristic. Therefore, combining
Gilbert and Motter would not result in a more efficient creation
of a gradient fill.
Appeal Br. 5, Appellants’ citations omitted, panel’s emphasis added.
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Application 13/671,276
2. In the Reply Brief, further as to above contention 1, Appellants also
contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because:
Gilbert does not teach or discuss improving gradient fill in
paragraph [0015]. Improving gradient fill would imply that a
prior art gradient fill method could be made better and that
some explanation in Gilbert would be provided to show the
improvement. Gilbert, however, does not discuss how to make
filling with gradients better. While paragraph [0069] includes
color gradient animations as one example of one of the
animations a designer or creator may define, Gilbert does not
disclose their improvement in either paragraph [0069] or
paragraph [0015].
Paragraph [0003] of Motter states, “However, the creation of a
gradient fill by manually assigning colors can be tedious,
especially if multiple colors are desired. Also, if a pattern of
colors is obtained from an external source, there is no way for a
user to efficiently create a gradient fill that simulates the pattern
from the external source.” While this paragraph describes that
manually assigning colors to a gradient fill is tedious and that
simulating the pattern of colors from an external source is
inefficient, Gilbert does not describe manually assigning colors
to color gradient animations or choosing colors to match an
external source pattern. Thus, a reasoning for the motivation
for combining Motter with Gilbert because manual color
assignment can be tedious or because the user has no way to
efficiently create a gradient fill that simulates the pattern from
the external source does not come from the references
themselves.
The reasoning for the motivation to combine in the Final Office
Action, which is the same reasoning that the Examiner addressed
in the Examiner’s Answer, is to efficiently create a gradient fill.
However, since paragraph [0003] of Motter refers to assigning
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Application 13/671,276
colors to the gradient and not to dimensions of the graphical
element by varying the gradient stop points, the Appellant
believes that one skilled in the art would not be motivated to
combine Motter with Gilbert because he has no way to match
gradient pattern colors of an external source. Accordingly, the
Appellant believes that paragraph [0003] of Motter fails to
provide a reasonable motivation for combining Motter with
Gilbert to achieve that called for in the claims.
The Examiner has not identified what Gilbert does disclose
regarding its efficiency to create a gradient fill. The Examiner
has only referred to Gilbert including an option of using color
gradient animations. There is no explanation in Gilbert as to
the efficiency of creating animations that include color
gradient animations. There is no evidence that adding Motter
to Gilbert results in a method that is any more efficient than
what is already disclosed in Gilbert. Therefore, the disclosure
in paragraph [0003] of Motter fails to provide sufficient
reasoning for the motivation to combine Motter with Gilbert.
Reply Br. 2—3, emphasis added.
Issue on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 1 as being obvious?
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’
conclusions. Except as noted herein, we adopt as our own: (1) the findings
and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which the appeal is
taken (Final Act. 2—10); and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the
Examiner’s Answer (Ans. 2-4) in response to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief.
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Application 13/671,276
We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the
following.
As to Appellants’ above contentions 1 and 2, we are not persuaded the
Examiner erred. As found by the Examiner, Gilbert teaches a graphic
element including a visualization and a number of properties, where the
properties define intrinsic properties associated with an entity being depicted
by the visualization. See Final Act. 3 (citing Gilbert | 55). As additionally
found by the Examiner, Gilbert broadly teaches performing changes to the
visualization based on changes to the properties, and more specifically
teaches, as an example visualization, displaying an animation that shows a
level of a tank being filled. See Final Act. 3^4 (citing Gilbert H 78, 125).
As also found by the Examiner, Motter teaches using gradient stop points
within a generated image. See Final Act. 4 (citing Motter || 5, 35, 41).
Appellants do not appear to dispute any of these findings. See Appeal Br. 5;
see also Reply Br. 2—3.
We disagree with Appellants’ argument that the Examiner has failed
to provide a reason to combine Gilbert and Motter. See Appeal Br. 5. As
found by the Examiner, both Motter and Gilbert are related to displaying
graphical elements (i.e., images) within a display, and one of ordinary skill
in the art would have been motivated to include gradient stop points as
taught by Motter within a visualization as taught by Gilbert to more
efficiently create a visualization that includes a gradient animation. See
Final Act. 4. We further disagree with Appellants’ argument that Gilbert
fails to discuss using a gradient animation to visualize a property. See
Appeal Br. 5. Instead, we agree with the Examiner that Gilbert discloses a
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Application 13/671,276
display of a graphic element involving a color gradient animation. See
Ans. 2—3 (citing Gilbert 1 69).
Appellants’ argument that neither Gilbert nor Motter provides
sufficient motivation to combine the references is also unpersuasive. See
Reply Br. 2—3. The Supreme Court has rejected the rigid requirement of
demonstrating a teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art to
combine references to show obviousness. See KSR Int’l Co., v. Teleflex Co.,
550 U.S. 398, 419 (2007). Instead, a rejection based on obviousness only
needs to be supported by “some articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning” to combine known elements in the manner required by the
claim. Id. at 418. The Examiner’s finding that it would have been obvious
to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was
made to combine Gilbert and Motter to more efficiently create a gradient
animation satisfies this articulated reasoning requirement. See Ans. 2; see
also Final Act. 4. Further, we disagree with Appellants that Gilbert and
Motter do not provide sufficient motivation to combine the references, as
Gilbert explicitly teaches displaying a graphic element using a color gradient
animation, and Motter teaches creating gradient points within a gradient
image to more effectively create a gradient fill. See Gilbert 1 69; see also
Motter 113, 5. Thus, both Gilbert and Motter teach or suggest a reason to
combine the references.
We have considered Appellants’ other arguments, and we do not find
them persuasive either. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claim 1.
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CONCLUSIONS
(1) The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 1—21 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
(2) Claims 1—21 are not patentable.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—21 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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