Ex Parte JessenDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 30, 201712782033 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 30, 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. 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 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation