Ex Parte Findlay et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 16, 2017

13411259 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 16, 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. 13/411,259 03/02/2012 Roland Findlay RII-628 FN201201130 1278 50447 7590 08/18/2017 DUFT BORNSEN & FETTIG, LLP 1526 SPRUCE STREET SUITE 302 BOULDER, CO 80302 EXAMINER PATEL, HITESHKUMAR R ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2441 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/18/2017 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): docketing @ dbflaw. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ROLAND FINDLAY, RONALD MARC CONESEU, EUGENE LIMB, HAIXIA YU, JAY DAUTCHER, ELENA GROSTRER, MICHAEL GRIFFIN, and YUKO IHARA Appeal 2016-0071631 Application 13/411,2592 Technology Center 2400 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., ADAM J. PYONIN, and NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1—20, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 Appellants indicate “pending appeals exist for continuation cases 13/412,396 [(Appeal 2016-008532)] and 13/412,443 [(Appeal 2016- 006936)].” Appeal Brief 3. 2 Ricoh Company Ltd. is identified as the real party in interest. Appeal Brief 3. Appeal 2016-007163 Application 13/411,259 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction The Application is directed to a system configured to “receive instructions in parallel from the multiple clients representing marks made upon the screen capture, and to transmit the instructions in parallel to the multiple clients to apply the marks onto the screen capture as presented at the displays of the multiple clients.” Abstract. Claims 1, 9, and 17 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below for reference (emphasis added): 1. A system comprising: a server that includes: a network interface operable to communicate with clients; and a control unit operable to receive a continuous stream of multiple screen captures per second from a client, each screen capture comprising a group of pixels that represent visual content at a display of the client, the control unit operable to identify multiple clients for receiving the stream, and to transmit the stream to the multiple clients for presentation at displays of the multiple clients, the control unit operable to receive instructions in parallel from the multiple clients representing marks that are overlaid on top of the stream instead of altering pixels of the screen captures of the stream, and to transmit the instructions in parallel to the multiple clients to apply the marks onto the stream as presented at the displays of the multiple clients. References and Rejections The following is the prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal: Salesky US 6,343,313 B1 Jan. 29,2002 Komine US 2010/0083136 A1 Apr. 1, 2010 2 Appeal 2016-007163 Application 13/411,259 Duffus US 2011/0239133 A1 Sept. 29, 2011 Lemonik US 2011/0252339 A1 Oct. 13, 2011 Claims 1—4, 7—12, and 15—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lemonik and Komine. Final Action 6—13. Claims 5 and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lemonik, Komine, and Duffus. Final Action 14. Claims 6 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lemonik, Komine, and Salesky. Final Action 15. ANALYSIS Appellants argue the Examiner errs, because “the Examiner is equating the document of Lemonik with a screen capture of claim 1, and the edits of Lemonik with the instructions of claim 1,” whereas “the ‘continuous stream’ language of claim 1 modifies the ‘screen captures,’ not the ‘instructions.’” Reply Brief 4. Appellants contend Lemonik does not teach or suggest a stream of screen captures as claimed: “while Lemonik does mention that its edits may be applied multiple times per second, it says nothing about whether the document of Lemonik is shared multiple times per second.” Id.', see also Appeal Brief 7—8. We are persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. Lemonik discloses a system for “coordinating simultaneous editing of an electronic document by multiple different users who are separated from each other.” Lemonik 120. Komine similarly discloses multiple users can edit a shared document. See Komine || 17—18. Lemonik further describes that each user device “may frequently report to a server system changes, or mutations, that the particular 3 Appeal 2016-007163 Application 13/411,259 user has recently made to their version of the document. Such reports . . . may occur on the order of multiple reports per second.” Lemonik | 5. The Examiner finds the recited “continuous stream of screen captures” to be taught or suggested by Lemonik and Komine, because the shared documents of Lemonik and Komine each teach the recited “screen captures,” and Lemonik’s reporting of mutations teaches the recited “continuous stream.” Answer 4—5. Lemonik’s reports are not of the documents themselves; rather, the reports are descriptions of the editing inputs made by users. See Lemonik 123. Thus, we agree with Appellants that Lemonik does not teach or suggest a “continuous stream of screen captures” as claimed. See Appeal Brief 8; Reply Brief 5. further, Komine is not relied upon by the Examiner for teaching the continuous stream. See Answer 5—6. Accordingly, we are persuaded the Examiner erred in finding the cited references teach or suggest the limitations of independent claim 1, as well as independent claims 9 and 17, which each recite limitations commensurate in scope. We do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of these claims, or the claims dependent thereon. DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—20 is reversed. REVERSED 4