Ex Parte Ogino et alDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardSep 10, 201814578890 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 10, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/578,890 12/22/2014 54072 7590 09/12/2018 SHARP KABUSHIKI KAISHA C/0 KEA TING & BENNETT, LLP 1800 Alexander Bell Drive SUITE 200 Reston, VA 20191 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Kumiko Ogino 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. 70404.2350/sz 4148 EXAMINER MERCADO VARGAS, ARIEL ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2176 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/12/2018 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): JKEATING@KBIPLA W.COM uspto@kbiplaw.com epreston@kbiplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte KUMIKO OGINO and SHINSAKU TOHKI Appeal2018-000682 Application 14/578,890 1 Technology Center 2100 Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JOHN P. PINKERTON, and CARLL. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 18-34, which are the only claims pending. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We affirm. STATEMENT OF THE CASE The invention relates to image editing apparatus allowing editing of image data using preview display. Abstract, Spec., 1:10-12, Figs. 5, 7-9. Claim 18, reproduced below, is exemplary of the subject matter on appeal ( emphasis added): 1 The real party in interest is identified as Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha. App. Br. 2. Appeal2018-000682 Application 14/578,890 18. An image editing apparatus, comprising: a display device having a display screen; a storage device configured to store image data of a plurality of pages; a preview display device configured to display preview images of pages of said image data stored in said storage device in accordance with a sequence of pages on said display screen; a selecting device configured to select any of said preview images displayed by said preview display device, in response to a user operation; a selected page display device responsive to selection of any of said preview images by said selecting device, configured to display an image representing a page corresponding to the selected preview image on said display screen; and an editing device responsive to a user operation of moving said image displayed by said selected page display device to a position between any two preview images in a sequence of said preview images, configured to edit a page sequence of said image data stored in said storage device. App. Br. 11 (Claims App'x). THE REJECTIONS Claims 18-25 and 27-33 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Bachman et al. (US 2012/0050788 Al; pub. March 1, 2012) ("Bachman") in view of Akagi (US 2008/0301583 Al; pub. December 4, 2008) ("Akagi"). Final Act. 4--17. Claims 26 and 34 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Bachman, Akagi, and Motoyoshi (US 2008/0231914 Al) ("Motoyoshi"). Final Act. 17-18. 2 Appeal2018-000682 Application 14/578,890 ANALYSIS Appellants argue the Examiner errs in finding the combination of Bachman and Akagi teaches claim 18 (and independent claim 27) because one of ordinary skill in the art would not be motivated to combine these references, and, even if combined, the result would not teach the claim 18 limitations: a selected page display device responsive to selection of any of said preview images by said selecting device, configured to display an image representing a page corresponding to the selected preview image on said display screen; and an editing device responsive to a user operation of moving said image displayed by said selected page display device to a position between any two preview images in a sequence of said preview images, configured to edit a page sequence of said image data stored in said storage device. App. Br. 5-10; Reply Br. 2--4. Appellants argue the Examiner concedes Bachman does not teach the claim 18 limitation "an editing device responsive to a user operation of moving said image displayed by said selected page display device to a position between any two preview images" and incorrectly relies on Akagi for this limitation. App. Br. 6. According to Appellants, Bachman teaches a selection interface for greeting cards which employs two regions wherein, when a greeting card is selected from the first region, the second region displays a plurality of greeting cards "'associated"' with the selected greeting card. Id. at 6-7 (citing Bachman ,r,r 38, 40--42, Fig. 1). Appellants argue "there would have been no logical reason to move a greeting card from the first set of greeting cards 106 displayed in the first region 104 of 3 Appeal2018-000682 Application 14/578,890 Bachman to the second set of greeting cards 118 displayed in the second region 116 because it would not have served any purpose or provided any benefit to the user." Id. at 7. Appellants additionally argue: neither of Bachman and Akagi even recognized or knew of a problem of dragging and dropping a selected page image while performing a large amount of scrolling when the number of page images is large (see, for example, page 2, lines 6-18 of Appellant's specification). Accordingly, any possible combination of Bachman and Akagi still fails to teach or suggest the unique advantages and benefits of Appellant's image editing apparatus, and corresponding method, that allows preview images to be easily changed, and that allows selected pages which are separate from the preview images to be displayed independently from scrolling of the preview images. Id. at 8. Appellants argue Akagi teaches a plurality of first thumbnails and a plurality of second thumbnails in which the plurality of first thumbnails remains unchanged as the order of the plurality of second thumbnails is changed. Id. at 7-8 (citing Akagi ,r,r 7, 9, 21, 34, 81, 82, Figs. 6(al), (a2)). According to Appellants: However, modifying the order of the thumbnails in the plurality of second thumbnails V-X of Akagi does not mean that a selected thumbnail ( e.g., thumbnail II) from the plurality of first thumbnails I-VII of Akagi is moved, as the term is used in Appellant's disclosure and understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, from the plurality of first thumbnails I-VII to the plurality of second thumbnails V-X. As explained above, Akagi teaches that the order of the plurality of first thumbnails I-VII should remain unchanged and in their original order. Thus, the selected thumbnail II of Akagi is merely copied from the plurality of first thumbnails I-VII to the plurality of second thumbnails V-X. 4 Appeal2018-000682 Application 14/578,890 Id. at 8. Regarding Appellants' argument that Akagi teaches "copying" the selected thumbnails, not "moving" as recited in claim 18, the Examiner interprets move as "really a copy." Ans. 22 ( citing "'Computer Desktop Encyclopedia' Move"2 - (1) in programming, to copy data from one place in memory to another). The Examiner finds Akagi's user enables the CPU to insert the thumbnail in the sorted thumbnail row. Id. at 24--25 ( citing Akagi ,r,r 81-88, Figs. 6, 6(al ), (a2)). The Examiner then finds "[b ]ased on the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim language and on the definition of move, Akagi by allowing the user to select a thumbnail and inserting the thumbnail between a plurality of thumbnails teaches and/or suggests" this limitation. Id. at 25. Regarding motivation, the Examiner finds Appellants rely on unclaimed features ("dragging and dropping ... ") and concludes that Bachman and Akagi are analogous art directed to the manipulation of media items and the combined teachings "yields to allow the user of the editing apparatus to scroll through a set of displayed images and easily reorder the displayed images based on some logical conditions." Id. at 19-20 ( citing Akagi ,r 5). In the Reply Brief, Appellants argue the Examiner's interpretation of "moving" is incorrect and not consistent with the Specification. Reply Br. 3--4 (citing Spec. 18-19, Figs. 8, 9). In particular, Appellants refer to the Specification description of moving a selected image from an original 2 The citation is undated. 5 Appeal2018-000682 Application 14/578,890 position to an inserted position such that the selected image "'disappears"' from the original position. Id. at 3. According to Appellants, "Appellant's use of the term 'move' is consistent with the customary meaning of 'move' in which, e.g., an object, once moved from a first position to a second position, is no longer present at the first position." Id. Appellants argue the Examiner errs by finding Akagi' s selected thumbnail is moved because, according to Appellants, "Akagi teaches that the selected thumbnail 11 of Akagi is copied from the plurality of first thumbnails I-VII to the plurality of second thumbnails V-X." Id. at 4. We are not persuaded by Appellants' interpretation of "moving" to exclude copying. In particular, the claims recite "moving said image" and the image is a representation based on underlying specific data or code. As such, moving the representation typically involves copying the data and then moving it (the representation based on the specific data or code) to the desired moved location. The Specification is consistent with this interpretation in describing "drag and drop" as being used to move images. Spec. 18:25-19:13. Claim terms in a patent application are given the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Crish, 393 F.3d 1253, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Regarding Appellants' assertion that moving an object from a first position to a second position requires the object to disappear from the first position, we note the term "disappear" is not recited in the claims. Additionally, considering the Akagi sorted row after an object VI has been moved from the presorted position 6 to the sorted position 2, the original 6 Appeal2018-000682 Application 14/578,890 object II disappears from the sorted position 2. See Akagi, Figs. 5 (al) and 5(a2). Regarding motivation to combine, we are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments because the Examiner presents sufficient evidence why one of ordinary skill in the art would combine the teachings of Akagi and Bachman, whereas Appellants' arguments are based on unclaimed features. In particular, the combined teachings enable "the user of [an] editing apparatus to scroll through a set of displayed images and easily reorder the displayed images based on some logical conditions." See Ans. 19--20 ( citing Akagi ,r 5). For example, a user may wish to reorder the associated greeting cards of Bachman in the second region based on interest, price, or other characteristic deemed useful by the user. See Bachman, Fig. 1. Here, the Examiner provides sufficient evidence as required for obviousness. As stated by the Supreme Court, the Examiner's obviousness rejection must be based on: "[S]ome articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness." ... [H]owever, the analysis need not seek out precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ. KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398,418 (2007) (quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977,988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)). 7 Appeal2018-000682 Application 14/578,890 In view of the above, 3 we sustain the rejection of independent claims 18 and 27, and dependent claims 19-26 and 28-34 as these claims are not argued separately. See 37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv). DECISION We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting 18-34. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). See 37 C.F.R. § 4I.50(f). AFFIRMED 3 Motoyoshi is cited in addition to Bachman and Akagi in the rejection of dependent claims 26 and 34, and not cited to cure the deficiencies, supra, regarding the independent claims. See Final Act. 17-18. 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation