Ex Parte Takase et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 18, 2018

13880143 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 18, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/880,143 04/18/2013 27538 7590 Gibson & Dernier LLP 89 Headquarters Plaza North PMB 1469 Morristown, NJ 07960 06/20/2018 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Masaki Takase 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. 545-398 1514 EXAMINER CHOI, DAVIDE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2174 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/20/2018 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): info@gdiplaw.com cmburgos@gdiplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Exparte MASAKI TAKASE, MUNETAKA TSUDA, YOU ASAKURA, and TAKASHI HATAKEDA Appeal2018-000192 Application 13/880, 143 Technology Center 2100 Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, and SHARON PENICK, Administrative Patent Judges. SZPONDOWSKI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1 and 4--8. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 The real party in interest is Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. App. Br. 2. Appeal2018-000192 Application 13/880,143 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants' invention is directed to a menu display device, menu display control method, program, and information storage medium. Spec. 2. The invention entails spacing a list of menu items in a manner that allows a user to immediately understand that a menu item at an end of the menu has been displayed on a screen. Id. Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A menu display device, comprising: a menu displaying unit configured to display on a screen a given range within a menu, in which a plurality of menu items are arranged in an array; a range moving unit configured to move the given range in response to a predetermined operation performed by a user; a determination unit configured to determine whether or not a menu item at an end within the menu is displayed in a predetermined position of the screen; and a space changing unit configured to change, when the menu item at the end is displayed in the predetermined position of the screen, spaces between respective menu items displayed on the screen in response to the predetermined operation performed by the user, such that a first space between the menu item at the end within the menu and an adjacent menu item, and a second space between the adjacent menu item and a next adjacent menu item, are widened and are of substantially similar square areas. 2 Appeal2018-000192 Application 13/880,143 REJECTIONS Claims 1 and 4--82 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ I03(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Wilson et al. (US 2011/0090255 Al; published Apr. 21, 2011) ("Wilson") and Zhou (US 2011/0145730 Al; published June 16, 2011). ANALYSIS The Examiner relies on Wilson to teach all of the limitations in claim 1 except for the final limitation where the spaces "are of substantially similar square areas," for which the Examiner relies on Zhou. Final Act. 4-- 5. The Examiner modifies Wilson with the teachings of Zhou to so that the spacing is "of substantially similar square areas." Final Act. 4, Ans. 5---6. Appellants argue the Examiner's modification of Wilson would render Wilson unsatisfactory for its intended purpose and would change the principle of operation of Wilson. App. Br. 6-7. According to Appellants, Wilson's "disclosed mode of operation (the 'accordion stretch') ... is the intended purpose of [Wilson] and represents the principle of operation of [Wilson]." App. Br. 6 (emphasis omitted). Appellants argue this intended purpose "is [at] complete odds with the claimed feature of maintaining the spaces (square areas) between menu items substantially similar." Reply Br. 3. Appellants argue Wilson "makes very clear that the respective distances between adjacent contact display elements are ever increasing (see FIG. 2b )" and the accordion stretch "provides the user with a specific and 2 Although the title of the rejection refers to claims 1--4 and 5-8, the rejection addresses only claims 1 and 4--8. Claims 2 and 3 were cancelled in a March 30, 2015 amendment. 3 Appeal2018-000192 Application 13/880,143 desired visual experience-namely that the image appears to 'stretch the goo 112' that lies between the contact display elements." App. Br. 6-7. Appellants argue "the Examiner's assertion that a skilled artisan would modify Wilson ... to remove the very feature that it teaches is highly important (i.e., the accordion stretch)" is error. App. Br. 6. We are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments and agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusions. See Final Act. 3--4; Ans. 3---6. Wilson generally describes "a user interface that provides visual cues when a document pan or scroll has reached an end or boundary by distorting the document image in response to further user inputs." Wilson Abstract. Wilson describes that the image distortion functionality used "may include shrinking, stretching, accordion expansion, or bouncing of a document image." Wilson Abstract. Throughout its specification, Wilson discusses these various forms of image distortion functionality. For example, Wilson discusses distorting the display image by uniformly stretching the content (a "'flat stretch"'), logarithmically stretching a portion of the content (a "'partial stretch"'), or by creating empty spaces between fixed sized items (an "'accordion stretch"'). Wilson ,r 30. We, therefore, agree with the Examiner (Ans. 3--4) that the intended purpose and principle of operation of Wilson is not limited to the accordion stretch, as Appellants argue. Rather, Wilson's intended purpose is to provide visual cues when a document pan or scroll has reached an end or boundary through image distortion functionality in response to further user inputs. Wilson's accordion stretch image distortion behavior occurs when the bottom end of a contact list is reached. Wilson ,r 41, Fig. 2B. The accordion 4 Appeal2018-000192 Application 13/880,143 stretch does not change the shape of the contact list display elements, but instead "stretch[ es] the goo" that lies between the contact data display elements. Wilson ,r 41, Fig. 2B. The Examiner's modification of Wilson involves adding another graphical effect - that the "goo" between a first and second space is "substantially similar square areas." See Ans. 5---6. The Examiner is not "removing" the accordion stretch, as Appellants argue (App. Br. 6), but, rather, adjusting the stretch so that two adjacent empty spaces have "substantially similar square areas." Appellants' argument that Wilson "makes very clear that the respective distances between adjacent contact display elements are ever increasing (see FIG. 2b)" and that this ever-increasing distance is part of the "specific and desired visual experience" of Wilson (App. Br. 6) is not persuasive. As described above, Wilson describes an accordion stretch as "creating empty space between fixed size items." Wilson ,r 30; see also Wilson ,r 39, claim 4. Although Figure 2B shows the empty spaces as increasing in size, we do not see that Wilson requires this spatial feature, or that the disclosure prohibits adjacent spaces from having a substantially similar square area. Nor do we see that Wilson discourages, criticizes, or otherwise discredits such a modification. See In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902 (Fed. Cir. 1984) (an argument that the system is rendered "inoperable for its intended purpose" is, in effect, a "teaching away" argument). Moreover, the claim merely recites that two spaces be widened and be of substantially similar area-the space between the menu item at the end and an adjacent menu item the space between an adjacent menu item and the next menu item-not that every space between all menu items must have a 5 Appeal2018-000192 Application 13/880,143 substantially similar square area. Therefore, we are not persuaded the proposed modification to Wilson would render Wilson unsatisfactory for its intended purpose and change the principle of operation. Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a), and we, therefore, sustain the rejection. For the same reasons, we sustain the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) rejection of claims 4---8, which were not argued separately. App. Br. 8. DECISION The Examiner's 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) rejection of claims 1 and 4-8 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 6