Ex Parte Taylor

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 14, 2017

12350857 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 14, 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. 12/350,857 01/08/2009 David Taylor 4171.CIRQ.NP 7649 26986 7590 03/16/2017 MORRISS OBRYANT COMPAGNI, P.C. 4505 S WASATCH BLVD, SUITE 270 SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84124 EXAMINER OKEBATO, SAHLU ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2625 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/16/2017 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@utiplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DAVID TAYLOR Appeal 2016-006819 Application 12/350,857 Technology Center 2600 Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, JEFFREY S. SMITH, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2016-006819 Application 12/350,857 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1 and 3—6, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. THE INVENTION The application is directed to “[a] touchpad used in place of a touch stick in a video game controller.” (Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal: 1. A method for controlling an input parameter in a game con troller device, said method comprising the steps of: 1) providing a touchpad on the game controller for control ling the input parameter; 2) touching down on the touchpad with a pointing object; 3) moving the pointing object along a surface of the touch- pad, wherein a value of the input parameter changes according to the movements of the pointing object, wherein the input param eter controls movement of a point of view within a virtual envi ronment; 4) wherein moving the pointing object causes a change in the point of view within the virtual environment, and stopping the pointing object causes the point of view within the virtual envi ronment to cease movement; and 5) wherein lifting the pointing object off the touchpad causes no further change in the point of view within the virtual environ ment such that the touchpad operates in a relative position oper ating mode. 1 Appellant identifies Cirque Corporation as the real party in interest. (See App. Br. 1.) 2 Appeal 2016-006819 Application 12/350,857 THE REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: 1. Claims 1 and 3—5 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Best and Snyder. (See Final Act. 2—5.) 2. Claim 6 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Best, Snyder, and Anderson. (See Final Act. 5—6.) Appellant argues the rejection is in error because “[t]he present invention . . . teaches using a first person perspective point of view of the 3D game world, and how controlling that point of view is improved over a touch stick,” while “Best does not teach using a first person perspective” and “Best cannot teach how to improve this view when it does not teach showing this perspective.” (App. Br. 9.) We agree with the Examiner, however, that Best does teach control of “movement of a point of view within a virtual environment,” as claimed, because, as the Examiner finds (see Ans. 2), it states that “[a] human player controls . . . point-of-view perspectives of cameras 175 or 215 using a directional input control member, such as . . . touchpad 24 (FIG. 8).” (Best 5:6—10.) Anderson Snyder et al. Best US 6,424,338 B1 July 23, 2002 US 6,664,989 B1 Dec. 16, 2003 US 7,371,163 B1 May 13, 2008 THE REJECTIONS ANALYSIS 3 Appeal 2016-006819 Application 12/350,857 Appellant also argues that “claim 3 adds an element to claim 1 of now causing the point of view of the first person observer to not just pivot around while the observer in the 3 [-]dimensional world remains stationary, but to cause the observer to move as well” and “[t]his is not taught in Best.” (App. Br. 10-11.) We find Appellant’s argument unpersuasive because it is not commensurate with the scope of claim 3. The claim recites “the method of controlling a parameter of the virtual environment further comprises controlling an input parameter from the group of input parameters including movement of a character within the virtual environment by moving the pointing object along a surface of the touchpad.” Because the claimed “group” is open ended (“including”), the claim does not require control of movement of a character within the virtual environment. Instead, it only requires that the parameter that is controlled be part of a group that includes the movement parameter, and we see no reason why such a group would not also include a point of view parameter.2 Because we find Appellant’s arguments unpersuasive, we sustain the rejections of claims 1 and 3—6. 2 We also note that claim 3 depends from claim 2, which has been canceled. That issue should be addressed in the event prosecution continues. 4 Appeal 2016-006819 Application 12/350,857 DECISION The rejections of claims 1 and 3—6 are 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 5