Ex Parte Gyorfi et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 19, 2016

13598902 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 19, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/598,902 08/30/2012 125366 7590 10/21/2016 Google Technology Holdings LLC (32367) 233 South Wacker Drive 6300 Willis Tower Chicago, IL 60606-6357 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Julius S. Gyorfi 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. CML07223 COl 1074 EXAMINER AMINI, JAVID A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2617 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/21/2016 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): mgbdocket@marshallip.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JULIUS S. GYORFI, ERIC R. BUHRKE, JUAN M. LOPEZ, and HAN YU Appeal 2015-005410 Application 13/598,902 Technology Center 2600 Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, ADAM J. PYO NIN, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1-12, which are all of the pending claims. See App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We AFFIRM. Appeal 2015-005410 Application 13/598,902 STATE1\llhN1 OF Tl-lli CASE Appellants' disclosure is directed to a "method and system ... for easily creating virtual graffiti that will be left for a particular device to view." Abstract. Claims 1 and 9 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below for reference: 1. A method for a device to create virtual graffiti, the method compnsmg: determining, via the device, a location of a frrst point; using the location of the frrst point to defme a user created boundary for the virtual graffiti; the frrst point thereafter being coupled to additional points for defming the user created boundary of a 3-dimensional shape for displaying the virtual graffiti; defming a virtual graffiti message, with the device, to be used as the virtual graffiti; placing the virtual graffiti within or upon the user created boundary; and transmitting information about the user created boundazy and virtual graffiti to a server. APPEALED REJECTIQNl Claims 1-12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being obvious over Guday (US 2008/0122871 Al; May 29, 2008) and Bragiel (US 2008/0225779 Al; Sept. 18, 2008). Final Act. 12. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellants' arguments; we disagree with Appellants' conclusions. We adopt the 1 The Examiner has withdrawn the nonstatutozy obviousness-type double patenting rejection of claims 1, 2, 4--7, and 9-12, pursuant to a Terminal Disclaimer filed by Appellants on December 8, 2013. See App. Br. 2-3. 2 Appeal 2015-005410 Application 13/598,902 Examiner's fmdings and conciusions (see Final Act. 2, 3, 11-16; Ans. 2--4) as our own, and we add the following primarily for emphasis. Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claims 1 and 9 because "as presently provided by the claims, the defmed boundary relates to the placement of the graffiti, such as within a virtual reality or augmented virtual reality space. Contrary to the Examiner's assertion, the [Guday] reference does not teach or suggest such a feature." App. Br. 5. Particularly, Appellants contend that the Examiner's cited "specific example [in Guday] fails to relate to 'virtual' graffit~ but alternatively relates to a note on a static picture taken of a possible location of interest." Id. at 6. Appellants contend that, therefore, "Guday fails to disclose a user created boundary of any dimensionality. Bragiel also fails to disclose a user created boundary. Therefore ... the proposed combination of Guday and Bragiel does not disclose a user created boundary of a 3-dimensional shape for displaying the virtual graffiti." Reply Br. 3. Claim 1 recites "placing the virtual graffiti within or upon the user created boundary," the boundary being a "3-dimensional shape" defmed by points. Independent claim 9 similarly recites the graffiti is placed within or upon a boundary (but does not recite any dimensionality). As an initial matter, we give claims their broadestreasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification as they would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367F.3d1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Appellants' Specification provides examples ofa two-dimensional boundary (such as a polygon defmed by four points), but does not describe a boundary having more than two dimensions. See, e.g., Spec. 3:27-30; see 3 Appeal 2015-005410 Application 13/598,902 also Spec. 13:19-23 (describing two-and three-dimensional graffiti rather than boundaries). Appellants' Specification, similarly, does not provide a narrowing defmition of"within or upon" a boundary as claimed; rather, the Specification provides exemplary descriptions, for example: (1) a user can attach the virtual graffiti to the location of a door, so that "augmented reality viewing system will show door201 having virtual graffiti 203 upon it" (Spec. 6:15-21, emphasis added); and (2) the user can "defme a polygon to be used as the boundary for the virtual graffiti. An image will then be received, and the image will be fit within the polygon" (Spec. 11 :13-15, emphasis added). See also Figs. 2, 6-8. In light of the Specification, we fmd the Examiner reasonably construed the boundary limitations of independent claims 1 and 9 to encompass Guday' s teaching "the virtual graffiti may [] appear[] on a specific location that is associated with real geographic coordinate[] points (i.e. latitude, longitude)," and the "frrst point can be equated as the person selected a place[:] here is the restaurant[,] and additional points can be equated as the [] points of geographic coordinates." Ans. 4; Guday ,-r,-r 22, 31. We agree with the Examiner because Gudayteaches placing the virtual graffiti on(i.e., within or upon) the geographic front ofa restaurant as defmed by a user. See Guday,-r,-r 30-31; compare Spec. 4:10-17; Fig. 2. Further, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in fmding the combination of Guday and Bragiel teaches or suggests the independent claims. Bragiel teaches a geo-tagged location can be represented as a point, a globe, or a multi-dimensional representation. Bragiel Fig. 9B; ,-r 99. We agree with the Examiner that one of ordinary skill would have modified Guday' s location for virtual graffiti placement with Bragiel' s teaching of 4 Appeal 2015-005410 Application 13/598,902 geo-tagged boundaries having three-dimensionai boundaries. See Finai Act. 13-14. Based on the record before us, we do not fmd such a combination was "uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art" or "represented an unobvious step over the prior art." Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citations removed). Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 1 and 9, and dependent claims 2-8 and 10-12, which are not separately argued. See App. Br. 5. DECISION The Examiner's rejection of claims 1-12 is affrrmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 5