Ex Parte QiaoDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 30, 201712338829 (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. 12/338,829 12/18/2008 Yue Qiao BLD9-2008-0023-US1 6103 50441 7590 04/03/2017 DUFT BORNSEN & FETTIG, LLP 1526 SPRUCE STREET SUITE 302 BOULDER, CO 80302 EXAMINER ZHU, RICHARD Z ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2675 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/03/2017 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): docketing @ dbflaw. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte YUE QIAO Appeal 2014-000043 Application 12/338,8291 Technology Center 2600 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., TREVOR M. JEFFERSON, and KEVIN C. TROCK, Administrative Patent Judges. JEFFERSON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL 1 The Real Party in Interest is InfoPrint Solutions Company, LLC. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2014-000043 Application 12/338,829 STATEMENT OF THE CASE2 Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1, 4—7, 9, 11—13, 15, and 17—19. Claims 2, 3, 8, 14, and 16 were cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Introduction The claims are directed to an optimized color conversion. Spec., Abstract. Claims 1, 9, and 15 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method of converting image data to a color space of an output imaging device, the method comprising: identifying color regions in the image data; identifying portions of the color regions that overlap in the image data; processing the overlapping portions of the color regions to remove abrupt transitions between the overlapping portions of the color regions; and converting color values in the color regions to the color space of the output imaging device based on a plurality of numerical models. References The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Gwaltney US Kuo US Dalai US Qiao 965 US 6,456,394 Sept. 24, 2002 7,777,915 Aug. 17,2010 2007/0058222 A1 Mar. 15, 2007 2007/0097965 A1 May 3, 2007 2 Throughout the decision, we refer to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed Apr. 11, 2013) and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed June 26, 2013). 2 Appeal 2014-000043 Application 12/338,829 Qiao, et al, Developing a Computational Radial Basis Function (RBF) Architecture for Nonlinear Scattered Color Data, 22nd International Conference on Digital Printing Technologies, Society for Imaging Science and Technology, 374—377 (September 2006). Rejections The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1, 5, 9, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kuo, Gwaltney, and Dalai. Final Act. 8—18. Claims 3, 4, 13, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kuo, Gwaltney, Dalai, and Qiao. Final Act. 18—19. Claims 6,1, 11, 12, 17, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kuo, Dalai, Qiao 965, and Qiao. Final Act. 19— 20. ANAFYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s argument the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellant’s conclusions. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 8—20) and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief (Ans. 3—10) and concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following for emphasis. Appellant argues that “[njothing in the prior art or the cited references teaches a color conversion process that optimizes overlapping portions of color regions to remove abrupt transitions between the overlapping portions of the color regions.” App. Br. 6. Appellant contends that Kuo, which 3 Appeal 2014-000043 Application 12/338,829 calibrates a scanner that may be used to improve color conversion, does not disclose a color conversion process that converts image data to a color space of an output imaging device. App. Br. 7. Unlike the claims, which require “converting image data to the color space of an output device,” Appellant argues that Kuo maps from RGB color space to a Lab color space, which is perceptual color and not used by output devices. App. Br. 7. Appellant contends that “Kuo also fails to disclose optimizing overlapping portions of color regions to remove abrupt transitions between the overlapping portions of the color regions” as required in the independent claims. App. Br. 9. Appellant contends that Gwaltney also fails to disclose optimizing overlapping portions of color regions because the color regions in Gwaltney do not overlap. App. Br. 9 (citing Gwaltney 8:9—9:17, Fig. 6 (item 18, 90), claim 1). Further, Appellant contends, Qiao does not disclose optimization of overlapping regions. App. Br. 10. Appellant also argues the Examiner has failed to provide an articulated reasoning with rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness. App. Br. 10. Although Appellant admits that Dalai discloses that Gwaltney can be for reducing the effect of dark areas from trapping and is incorporated by reference in its entirety into Dalai, (App. Br. 11; Dalai 0058), Appellant argues that: Kuo, Gwaltney, and Dalai all fail to show, either alone or in combination, the optimization of overlapping portions of color regions to remove abrupt transitions between the overlapping portions of the color regions. This limitation is simply not stated unless one selects individual words from the three references to form a sentence. That is not determining the scope and contents of the prior art and ascertaining the differences between the prior 4 Appeal 2014-000043 Application 12/338,829 art and the claims in issue, as required by Graham v. John Deere. That requires more than the mere identification of similar words. In fact, none of the references are even color conversion systems. Rather, they all relate to calibration systems that improve color conversion processes. App. Br. 11. The Examiner finds that Kuo “discloses applying a progressive technique containing a global low degree multidimensional mapping and local mapping accuracy refinement to the identified regions of interests (Col. 8, Rows 50-62 and Col., Rows 3-6) to map the RGB values of the scanner into LAB values.” Ans. 5 (citing Kuo, 8:40—62, 8:35—42; 11:3—6). The Examiner finds Kuo’s teaching of a process that converts or maps scanner RGB color values to printer CIELAB values, and optimizes its mapping accuracy using a radial basis function during the conversion teaches mapping “consistent with [Appellant’s] definition of color transformation.” App. Br. 6. Furthermore, Kuo is not limited to visual color perception mapping, the Examiner finds (App. Br. 7), but instead expressly discloses “automatically creating] the color mapping from the scanner RGB to printer CIELAB (or XYZ).” Kuo, 12:25-26. We agree with the Examiner. We first note that Appellant discusses claim 1 as it relates to the prior art (App. Br. 6), but proceeds to only generally discuss the cited prior art references as they relate to Appellant’s “claims” (see, e.g. App. Br. 8) without specific reference to individual claims. Where an Appellant’s remarks do not point to any specific language within the claims to distinguish over the prior art, those remarks amount to a general allegation that the claims define a patentable invention. Such allegations will not be considered an argument for separate patentability. 37 5 Appeal 2014-000043 Application 12/338,829 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(vii) (2007). Thus, Appellant’s arguments stand or fall with claim 1. We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the references teach away from each other because they conflate discussion of non overlapping and over-lapping regions together. App. Br. 8. We do not find that the technical discussions in Kuo, Dalai, and Gwaltney constitute teaching away, as they do not criticize, discredit or discourage their combined solution. See In re Fulton, 391 F.3d 1195, 1201(Fed. Cir. 2004). Indeed, Dalai expressly suggests the trapping method disclosed in Gwaltney and incorporates it by reference. Dalai 10058 We are also not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the asserted references do not teach optimization, as the Examiner has provided persuasive evidence that Dalai and Gwaltney teach optimization processes for color transition areas, which are discussed in Kuo. Ans. 8—10 (citing Dalai 3—5, 58, Fig. 1 (items 108, 110, 114); Kuo, 10:60-63; Gwaltney, Fig. 6, 8:10-42, 8:55-61, 8:65-67. The Examiner has provided an articulated reason with rational underpinning that Dalai and Gwaltney address the color transition area discussed in Kuo, which is directed to color conversion between devices. Ans. 9—10. Appellant has not provided sufficient or persuasive evidence and argument to show that Kuo does not disclose color conversion or that Gwaltney and Dalai do not discuss optimization of overlapping color areas. We agree with the Examiner’s findings that Kuo, Gwaltney, and Dalai teach the limitations of claims 1, 5, 9, and 15. Ans. 5—7. We are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding that claims 1, 5, 9, and 15 are unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) over Kuo, Gwaltney, 6 Appeal 2014-000043 Application 12/338,829 and Dalai; claims 3,4, 13, and 19 are unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) over Kuo, Gwaltney, Dalai, and Qiao; and claims 6, 7, 11, 12, 17, and 18 are unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Kuo, Dalai, Qiao 965, and Qiao. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 4—7, 9, 11—13, 15, and 17-19 DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 4—7, 9, 11—13, 15, and 17—19 is affirmed. 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). AFFIRMED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation