Ex Parte Koh et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 17, 201712130607 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 17, 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. 12/130,607 05/30/2008 Eunyee Koh 58083-394809 (B705) 4287 72058 7590 03/21/2017 Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP Adobe Systems, Inc. 58083 Mailstop: IP Docketing - 22 1100 Peachtree Street, Suite 2800 Atlanta, GA 30309-4530 EXAMINER JOSEPH, SHAWN S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2176 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/21/2017 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): ipefiling @ kilpatrickstockton .com jlhice@kilpatrick.foundationip.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte EUNYEE KOH and WALTER WEI-TUH CHANG Appeal 2016-004423 Application 12/130,607 Technology Center 2100 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, JOHN F. HORVATH, and MICHAEL M. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1—8, 16, 17, 19—24, and 32. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Adobe Systems, Inc. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2016-004423 Application 12/130,607 Introduction Appellants’ claimed invention relates to “reading order extraction,” which is a computerized process for extracting text from documents that have a layout of distinct columns and sections, such as a typical newspaper, so that the extracted text is placed together in the order that it is intended to be read. Spec. 1—3. Claim 1 is exemplary: 1. A method comprising: receiving a collection of strings, each string from the collection of strings having a corresponding bounding box describing a position of at least a portion of the string in a source document, the source document including multiple sections, each section presenting at least a portion of the collection of strings; determining string densities occurring in a first subset of vertical portions of the source document by processing vertical position information from at least one bounding box by scanning left to right; determining string densities occurring in a first subset of horizontal portions of the source document by processing horizontal position information from at least one bounding box by scanning top to bottom; detecting a section boundary of one of the multiple sections in the source document by concurrently analyzing the string densities occurring in vertical portions and the string densities occurring in horizontal portions; based on the section boundary, assigning each string from the collection of strings to either a pre-boundary collection of strings, or a post-boundary collection of strings; recursively analyzing the pre-boundary collection of strings and the post-boundary collection of strings to search for additional section boundaries in each collection; and arranging the collection of strings according to a reading order using the section boundary, the reading order 2 Appeal 2016-004423 Application 12/130,607 corresponding to a language associated with the collection of strings. App. Br. 16 (Claims App’x). References and Rejections Claims 1—8, 16, 17, 19—24, and 32 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over prior art described by Appellants in the Specification (“APA” (admitted prior art)), Paknad et al. (US 5,832,530; Nov. 3, 1998), Altamura et al. (Transforming paper documents into XML format with WISDOM++, International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition, Vol. 4, Iss. 1, pp. 2-17; Aug. 2001), Kobayashi (US 2006/ 0288278 Al; Dec. 21, 2006), and Tsuji (Document Image Analysis for Generating Syntactic Structure Description, 9th International Conference on Pattern Recognition; 1988, available at ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/28346/ (last accessed Mar. 7, 2007)). Final Act. 2-16. ANALYSIS In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner finds Kobayashi teaches the recited steps of “determining string densities” (by horizontal and vertical scanning in a document) and “detecting a section boundary” (by concurrently analyzing the vertical and horizontal string densities). See Final Act. 5—6 (citing Kobayashi | 88, Fig. 6). Appellants contend the Examiner errs in these findings because the cited portions of Kobayashi teach “searching for the locations of extracted objects within a document in order to determine the reading order for the extracted objects” (App. Br. 9), which does not does teach or suggest any aspect of “string densities” and, accordingly, does 3 Appeal 2016-004423 Application 12/130,607 not teach or suggest the recited determining or detecting steps. See App. Br. 8-13. The Examiner responds that Appellants’ arguments merely allege patentability and fail to comply with 37 C.F.R. 41.37(c)(l)(iv). Ans. 3—4, 10-11, 13—14. We disagree. Appellants discuss the disclosure of Kobayashi and contrast its teachings with the relevant portions of the claim language, which clearly explains why Appellants allege the Examiner errs in finding Kobayashi teaches the recited “string density” requirements. The Examiner also responds that Appellants ignore the context of Kobayashi (see Ans. 4—6), which discloses extracting from a document “the rectangular areas and the attributes of elements” (id. at 5 (quoting Kobayashi 174)). The Examiner reasons that in Kobayashi, “each printed string possesses a ‘density’” that meets the dictionary definition of that term “since the font and font size dictate the amount, or quantity, of characters displayed per unit area or unit length.” Ans. 5 (citing Merriam-Webster’s definition of density (“the quantity per unit volume . . ., unit area . . ., or unit length”)) {see www.merriam-webster.com/dietionary/density (last accessed March 7, 2017)). Appellants reply that “[t]he Examiner seems to conflate the concept that strings of a document have a density with the claimed elements for determining string densities in a document.” Reply Br. 3 (emphasis removed). We agree. An ordinarily skilled artisan certainly understands that all documents containing strings have areas where the strings occur, and areas where they do not, and that inherently therefore there is a density of the strings within any given area of such documents. But we agree with Appellants that the existence of an inherent property does not by itself teach 4 Appeal 2016-004423 Application 12/130,607 or suggest a step of determining that property. We find persuasive Appellants’ argument that Kobayashi’s teaching of using the location of objects within a document for determining the reading order does not teach or suggest the recited requirements for determining string densities and then detecting a section boundary by analyzing the string densities. The Examiner also responds by newly finding that the APA, Paknad, and Altamura each also teach the recited steps for determining string densities. Ans. 8—9. Specifically, the Examiner finds: the Specification’s APA discussion of spatial configurations of word positions teaches string density “since we know where words are positioned] and how far apart they are” (id. at 8); Paknad’s analysis of the spatial distance between adjacent text objects teaches string density for the same reason (id. at 9); and Altamura also teaches determining string densities by its use of a “spread factor” ratio that indicates “‘closely’ (densely) ‘written text regions’ are determined and indicated by the given ratio” (id.). Regarding the Examiner’s new APA finding, Appellants reply that the Specification discusses “conventional techniques [that] can analyze the spatial configuration of word positions in a document,” but does not indicate these techniques provide sufficient information to determine string density. Reply Br. 4 (citing Spec. 2:9—15). We find this argument persuasive. The Examiner provides no finding to explain why one of ordinary skill would understand the APA teaching of identifying positions of words throughout a document suggests determining vertical and horizontal string densities. Regarding Paknad, Appellants reply that it teaches using whitespace to identify words in a document, and while it teaches determining whether the space between characters exceeds a threshold, there is nothing in Paknad 5 Appeal 2016-004423 Application 12/130,607 that indicates determining string densities. Id. (citing Paknad 2:61—3:10). “Simply having the data from which a density could be found . . . does not teach actually determining the string density, particularly if there is no apparent purpose for doing so.” Id. at 5. We agree. While the documents discussed in Paknad contain text, and thus inherently have string densities, Paknad is silent as to determining the inherent string densities within the documents. Regarding the Examiner’s new finding that Altamura teaches the recited requirements for determining string densities, Appellants reply that the “spread factor” discussed by the Examiner “applies to sections of the document meeting qualifying criteria and is based on measuring the distance between these qualifying sections.” Id. Identifying a distance between a pair of qualifying regions (or the spread factor based on the distance) is not determinative of the string densities within the regions, not determinative of the string densities in portions of the document outside of the qualifying regions, and not determinative of the string densities in the document as a whole. Once again, the Examiner seems to conflate the concept that strings of a document have a density with the claimed elements for determining string densities in a document. Id. at 5—6. We again find Appellants’ argument persuasive. While Altamura’s spread factor may reflect string density within a document, the Examiner does not explain how determining an overall spread factor ratio for a document teaches or suggests the specific requirements for determining 6 Appeal 2016-004423 Application 12/130,607 multiple vertical and horizontal string densities that subsequently are concurrently analyzed for boundary section detection, as recited.2 Accordingly, Appellants persuade us the Examiner errs in finding the cited art teaches the recited uses of string densities in the determining and detecting steps, and we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1. The other independent claims, 17 and 32, both include limitations analogous to those of claim 1. Thus, for the same reasons, we also do not sustain their rejection. We also, accordingly, do not sustain the rejection of the dependent claims, 2—8, 16, and 19-24. 2 We note Altamura discusses that the WISDOM++ document processing system incorporates a prior art LEX layout analysis system, which includes “an iterative process, in which the vertical and horizontal histograms of text blocks are alternatively analyzed to detect columns and sections/paragraphs, respectively.” Altamura, p. 6. The Examiner does not make any findings that explain whether or how this disclosure of using histograms of text blocks to detect columns and sections teaches or suggests determining vertical and horizontal string densities and then detecting a section boundary by concurrently analyzing determined string densities, as recited by claim 1. We note, in an ex parte appeal, the Board “is basically a board of review—we review . . . rejections made by patent examiners.” Ex parte Gambogi, 62 USPQ2d 1209, 1211 (BPAI 2001). Review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 “is not a process whereby the examiner . . . invite[s] the [Bjoard to examine the application and resolve patentability in the first instance.” Ex parte Braeken, 54 USPQ2d 1110, 1112 (BPAI 1999). The Board’s primary role is to decide based on the findings and conclusions presented by the Examiner. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(a)(1). We express no opinion as to the validity of the pending claims in view of additional explanation and/or references. Although we have authority to reject claims under 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b), no inference should be drawn when we elect not to do so. See Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) § 1213.02. 7 Appeal 2016-004423 Application 12/130,607 DECISION For the above reasons, we reverse the rejection of claims 1—8, 16, 17, 19-24, and 32. REVERSED 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation