Ex Parte LoCascio

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 29, 2017

12578424 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 29, 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. 12/578,424 10/13/2009 James LoCascio 20057-1710 6324 69569 7590 08/31/2017 NORTH WEBER & BAUGH LLP 3260 Hillview Avenue, 1st Floor PALO ALTO, CA 94304 EXAMINER RABINDRANATH, ROY P ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2691 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/31/2017 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): docket 1 @ northweber.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JAMES LOCASCIO Appeal 2015-006440 Application 12/578,4241 Technology Center 2600 Before JOHN A. EVANS, KAMRAN JIVANI, and ALEX S. YAP, Administrative Patent Judges. YAP, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of claims 1, 3—4, 6—20, and 22—36, which are all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. (App. Br. 3.) Appeal 2015-006440 Application 12/578,424 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction According to the Specification, Appellant’s “invention relates to electrical circuits[, m]ore specifically, [it] relates to backlights for televisions, computers, and other displays.” (October 13, 2009 Specification (“Spec.”) 1.) Claim 1 is illustrative, and is reproduced below (with minor reformatting): 1. A backlighting system comprising: one or more LED strings; a high-voltage source; one or more low-voltage regulators coupled in a feedback loop, the one or more low-voltage regulators have a polarity opposite that of the high-voltage source, the high-voltage source and the one or more low-voltage regulators provide voltage differences across the one or more LED strings to illuminate the one or more LED strings without a current source, the one or more low- voltage regulators are programmed to periodically couple outputs of the one or more LED strings to a controlled and variable low voltage. Prior Art and Rejections on Appeal The following table lists the prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal: Yong et al. (“Yong”) US 2004/0012556 Al Jan. 22, 2004 Yamamoto et al (“Yamamoto”) US 2005/0093792 Al May 5, 2005 Watanabe et al. US 2005/0174098 Al Aug. 11,2005 (“Watanabe”) Korcharz et al. US 2007 /0195025 Al Aug. 23, 2007 (“Korcharz”) 2 Appeal 2015-006440 Application 12/578,424 Oh et al. (“Oh”) US 2007 /0229446 Al Oct. 4, 2007 Deng et al. (“Deng”) US 7,880,404 B2 Feb. 1,2011 Claims 1, 4, 6—8, 20, 22, 25—29, 32, and 35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) unpatentable over the Applicant Admitted Prior Art (“AAPA”), in view of Yamamoto, and further in view of Yong. (See Final Act. 2-16.) Claims 9—12 and 31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over AAPA in view of Yamamoto. (See Final Act. 16—21.) Claims 13 and 16—18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yamamoto in view of Oh. (See Final Act. 21—23.) Claim 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yamamoto, in view of Oh, and further in view of AAPA. (iSee Final Act. 23—24.) Claims 3 and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over AAPA, in view of Yamamoto, and further in view of Deng. (See Final Act. 24—25.) Claims 15 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yamamoto, in view of Oh, and further in view of Deng. (See Final Act. 26—27.) Claims 30 and 33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over AAPA, in view of Yamamoto, and further in view of Yong. (See Final Act. 27—29.) 3 Appeal 2015-006440 Application 12/578,424 Claim 34 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over AAPA, Yamamoto, Yong, Watanabe, and Korcharz. (See Final Act. 30—31.) Claims 23 and 36 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over AAPA, in view of Yamamoto and Yong, and further in view of Korcharz. (See Final Act. 31—32.) ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner has erred. We are persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting the claims on appeal. With respect to independent claim 1, the Examiner finds that Yamamoto teaches or suggests “the one or more low-voltage regulators are programmed to periodically couple outputs of the one or more LED strings to a controlled and variable low voltage.'1'’ (Final Act. 3—4, emphasis added.) According to the Examiner, during the discharge process in Yamamoto, when Vn “discharges towards ground[,] Vn takes on different negative voltages such as -8V, -7V, -6V, etc. and is in this sense variable.” (Id. at 4.) In addition, because the “charge and discharge process [] is controlled by control circuit 22,” the discharge process is therefore controlled. (Id.) Appellant contends that “even assuming arguendo that, as the [] capacitor 25 discharges towards ground, Yamamoto still fails to disclose any control associated which [sic] such discharge, because Yamamoto does not control the negative voltage Vn itself.” (App. Br. 13.) Appellant also argues that Vn is not variable. (Id.) 4 Appeal 2015-006440 Application 12/578,424 We have reviewed the portions of Yamamoto cited by the Examiner and the Examiner’s findings regarding this limitation and agree with Appellant that, based on the record before us, Yamamoto does not teach or suggest “to a controlled and variable low voltage.” The Specification discloses that a low-voltage regulator 350 is used to set a variable voltage to control the illumination of the LED strings. (Spec. 6.) In other words, different voltages are used to control the illumination of the LED strings. As discussed above, the Examiner finds Yamamoto teaches or suggests variable voltage during the discharge process. (Final Act. 4.) According to the Examiner, the “discharge[ of Vn] towards ground[,] Vn takes on different negative voltages such as -8V, -7V, -6V, etc. and is in th[at] sense variable.” (Id.) While we agree with the Examiner that “Vn takes on different negative voltages such as -8V, -7V, -6V, etc.” during discharge, the variability of Vn is not controlled. The only controllable voltage in Yamamoto is either the charged voltage (-9 V) or the discharged voltage (0 V) and nothing in between. While the “charge and discharge process [] is controlled by control circuit 22,” as the Examiner points out, the Examiner does not explain how control circuit 22 controls variable Vn voltages. For the foregoing reasons, we are persuaded of Examiner error in the rejection of independent claim l2 and do not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claim 1. Independent claims 9, 13, 20, 31, and 35 contain similar limitations at issue and the Examiner makes similar findings. (Final 2 Because we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection for the reasons discussed herein, we need not address Appellant’s further arguments. See Beloit Corp. v. Valmet Oy, 742 F.2d 1421, 1423 (Fed. Cir. 1984) (finding an administrative agency is at liberty to reach a decision based on “a single dispositive issue”). 5 Appeal 2015-006440 Application 12/578,424 Act. 2-4 (claims 1, 20, and 35), 17—18 (claims 9 and 31), 21—22 (claim 13).) Thus, for the same reason, we do not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of independent claims 9, 13, 20, 31, and 35, as well as claims 3—4, 6—8, 10-12, 14—19, 21—30, 32—34, and 36, which depend from either independent claim 1,9, 13,20, or 31. DECISION We reverse the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 3—4, 6—20, and 22—36. REVERSED 6