Ex Parte Jessen

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 30, 2017

12782033 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 30, 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.
8185P089 3878
EXAMINER
LETT, THOMAS J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2677
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/782,033 05/18/2010
76073 7590 03/30/2017
InfoPrint Solutions/ Blakely
1279 Oakmead Parkway
Sunnyvale, CA 94085-4040
Robert Frederic lessen
03/30/2017 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte
ROBERT FREDERIC JESSEN
Appeal 2016-004434
Application 12/782,0331
Technology Center 2600
Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, AMBER L. HAGY, and
SHARON FENICK, Administrative Patent Judges.
FENICK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—23, all the pending claims in the
present application. (Appeal Br. 3.) We have jurisdiction over the appeal
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b)(1).
We REVERSE.
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is InfoPrint Solutions
Company LLC. (Appeal Br. 3.)
Appeal 2016-004434
Application 12/782,033
Invention
Appellant’s invention relates to “receiving print job data at a printing
system, tracking resource objects in print job data while the print job data is
rasterized to generate rasterized print data and updating a count of resource
objects for print job data confirmed as printed.” (Spec. Abstract, see also id.
1125-27, Fig 3.)
Illustrative Claim
Claim 1, reproduced below with emphasis added, is illustrative:
1. A printing system comprising:
a printer controller to receive print job data, including:
a rasterizer to rasterize the print job data to generate
rasterized print data and to collect Page Description Language
[PDL] resource object occurrence data in the print job data
during rasterization of the print job data; and
a print auditor to process printing process status data and
to receive the PDL resource object occurrence data from the
rasterizer and to update a count of resource objects for print job
data confirmed as printed; and
a print engine to print the rasterized print data on a
medium.
Rejections
Appellant appeals the following rejections:
Claims 1—23 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Nagarajan (US 2009/0265286 Al; pub. Oct. 22, 2009) and
Aschenbrenner et al. (“Aschenbrenner”) (US 7,394,568 Bl; iss. July 1,
2008). (Final Action 3—9.)
2
Appeal 2016-004434
Application 12/782,033
ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds that the combination of Nagarajan and
Aschenbrenner teaches or suggests the limitations of claim 1, including the
limitation concerning collection of Page Description Language (PDL)
resource object occurrence data. (Final Action 4—5; Answer 7—9.)
Specifically, the Examiner finds that the collection of PDL resource object
occurrence data in the print job data is taught by Aschenbrenner. (Final
Action 4; Answer 8—9.)
Aschenbrenner discusses a printer controller that receives print jobs
and includes a raster image processor that generates raster objects, each
raster object including pixel information for printing, e.g. one raster object
for each color component being printed. (Aschenbrenner 3:2—15; Fig. 1.)
Separate raster objects may be produced for line art (text or graphics) and
images to be printed. {Id. at 3:15—19.)
The Examiner finds that the assignment of consecutive numbers for
the raster objects teaches ‘“collecting PDL resource object occurrence data
in print job data during rasterization of the print job data’ since each object
is assigned a sequence number relative to the number of objects received for
each page.” (Answer 8.)
Appellant argues that “a process of numbering rasterized objects is not
equivalent to a process of collecting data regarding the occurrence of objects
during rasterization” (Appeal Br. 11) and that Aschenbrenner’s “generated
raster objects are not equivalent to PDL resource objects” (Reply Br. 3
(emphasis omitted)).
We agree with Appellant. While “PDL resource objects” are not
specifically defined in the Specification, the Specification’s discussion of
3
Appeal 2016-004434
Application 12/782,033
page description language occurs in the explanation regarding the receipt of
a raw print job by “rasterizers/interpreters 253,” which “interpret page
description languages of the raw print job” and generate rasterized format
print pages. (Spec. 20-22, Fig. 1.) In contrast, Aschenbrenner’s
disclosure of raster objects including pixel information, does not teach or
suggest the claimed “PDL resource objects.” We find that the broadest
reasonable interpretation of the claim term “PDL resource object” consistent
with the Specification, is an resource object in print job data that specifies
arrangement of a printed page through computer commands.
Aschenbrenner’s raster objects are not within this broad, but reasonable
interpretation of PDL resource objects. Additionally, we agree with
Appellant (Appeal Br. 11) that, as referenced by the Examiner (Final Action
4), Aschenbrenner produces different raster objects and numbers the objects
to print them in a specific sequence (Aschenbrenner 4:32—43),
Aschenbrenner does not teach or suggest collection of PDL resource object
occurrence data, but instead, teaches collection of resource object sequence
data for raster objects.
Thus, we agree with the Appellant that the Examiner has not shown
how Aschenbrenner’s teachings, in combination with those of Nagarajan,
render obvious the disputed claim limitation, and we find Appellant’s
argument to be persuasive. Because we agree with at least one dispositive
argument advanced by Appellant, we need not reach the merits of
Appellant’s other arguments.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection
of independent claim 1. Additionally, we do not sustain the rejections of
4
Appeal 2016-004434
Application 12/782,033
independent claims 12, 19, and 22, or dependent claims 2—11, 11—18, 20, 21,
and 23, all argued in whole or in part on the same basis.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejections of claims 1—23 as
obvious.
REVERSED
5