Ex Parte Vassallo et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 27, 2016

12370762 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 27, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/370,762 02/13/2009 28116 7590 04/29/2016 WestemGeco L.L.C. 10001 Richmond Avenue IP Administration Center of Excellence Houston, TX 77042 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Massimiliano Vassallo 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. 53.0109-US-NP 6295 EXAMINER ALONZO MILLER, RHADAMES J ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2847 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/29/2016 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): USDocketing@slb.com jalverson@slb.com SMarckesoni@slb.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MASSIMILIANO VASSALLO, DIRK-JAN MANEN, ALI OZBEK, and AHMET KEMAL OZDEMIR Appeal2014-003382 Application 12/370,762 Technology Center 2800 Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., and ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1-26. 1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 Although Appellants list only claims 1, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15 and 21 as the subject of the appeal, Appellants do not affirmatively cancel the remaining claims. See App. Br. 5. Thus, we treat all claims 1-26 (i.e., all pending and rejected claims) as before us. See Final Act. 1. Appeal2014-003382 Application 12/370,762 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants' disclosure relates to "receiving seismic data acquired in a seismic survey" having "an associated undersampled direction, and the seismic data contains samples, which are indicative of a pressure wavefield and a directional derivative of the pressure wavefield that contains information related to vertical variations." Abstract. Claims 1 and 15 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below for reference: 1. A method comprising: receiving seismic data acquired in a seismic survey, the survey having an associated undersampled direction and the seismic data containing samples indicative of a pressure wavefield and a directional derivative of the pressure wavefield that contains information related to vertical variations; modeling the samples as being derived by applying at least one linear filter to the pressure wavefield or the directional derivative of the pressure wavefield and sampling at least one output of the at least one linear filter; and based on the modeling, processing the seismic data in a processor-based machine to construct a substantially unaliased continuous representation of the pressure wavefield or the directional derivative of the pressure wavefield along the undersampled direction. The Examiner's Rejections RI: Claims 1--4, 6, 11, 13, 15-18, 22-24, and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Vaage (US 2005/0195686 Al; Sept. 8, 2005), Duren (US 6,021,379; Feb. 1, 2000), and Michel (US 2004/0189277 Al; Sept. 30, 2004). Final Act. 2. R2: Claims 5 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Vaage, Duren, Michel, and Eldar (Y onina C. Eldar 2 Appeal2014-003382 Application 12/370,762 & Alan V. Oppenheim, Filterbank Reconstruction ofBandlimited Signals from Nonuniform and Generalized Samples, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING, VOL. 48, No. 10, October 2000). Final Act. 8. R3: Claims 7, 8, 12, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Vaage, Duren, Michel, and Robertsson (US 6,775,618 Bl; Aug. 10, 2004). Final Act. 10. R4: Claims 9 and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Vaage, Duren, Michel, and Goloshubin (US 6,941,227 B2; Sept. 6, 2005). Final Act. 12. R5: Claims 10 and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Vaage, Duren, Michel, and Alam (US 2009/0292475 Al; Nov. 26, 2009). Final Act. 13. R6: Claim 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Vaage, Duren, Michel, and Higginbotham (US 2010/0030479 Al; Feb. 4, 2010). Final Act. 14. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants' arguments that the Examiner has erred. Any other arguments Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2012). We adopt the Examiner's findings and conclusions (see Final Act. 2-16; Ans. 2-15) as our own, and we add the following primarily for emphasis. 3 Appeal2014-003382 Application 12/370,762 A. Rejection RI Regarding rejection RI, Appellants argue the Examiner erred because Michel fails to disclose or suggest "sampling at least one output of the at least one linear filter," as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 10. Particularly, Appellants contend the finite impulse filter (FIR) of Michel "is a discrete, or digital, filter that ... processes discrete input values to produce a discrete, or digital, output signal," which "may arguably be viewed as being samples of a continuous signal, [however] the FIR filter does not provide this continuous signal;" thus the Examiner "errs in contending that Michel's FIR filter produces a continuous signal that is sampled." Reply Br. 2. We are not persuaded the Examiner erred. The Examiner finds that Michel teaches a FIR filter "is a linear system defined by a recurrent equation according to which an output number, representing a sample of the filtered signal, is obtained" and "[t]he output of the filter is sampled in order to model the signal in each sub-band." Ans. 6-7 (citing Michel i-f 3 8) (emphasis removed). Appellants' argument is unpersuasive because Appellants' contention is not commensurate with the scope of the claim. Specifically, claim 1 does not require the output of at least one linear filter to be a continuous signal. Contra App. Br. 10. Appellants additionally argue the Examiner erred because Duren fails to disclose or suggest "deriving samples of a wavefield by applying a linear filter to the wavefield (emphasis added)." App. Br. 12. We are not persuaded the Examiner erred. The Examiner finds "Michel discloses applying at least one linear filter (i.e. finite impulse response digital filter) to the wavefield." Final Act. 4. Appellants' argument is unpersuasive of error because Appellants attack Michel and Duren individually, and thus fail to 4 Appeal2014-003382 Application 12/370,762 address the Examiner's findings. See Jn re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCP A 1981) (citations omitted) ("one cannot show non-obviousness by attacking references individually where, as here, the rejections are based on combinations of references."). Appellants additionally argue the Examiner erred because "none of the cited references disclose or render obvious the claimed modeling," (Reply Br. 2 (emphasis removed)) and that "it is entirely unclear" why Michel, when considered alone or in combination with Duren, would render the claimed modeling obvious (Reply Br. 3). See App. Br. 13. The Examiner finds "Vaage discloses modeling measurements of a seismic wavefield," Duren processes measurements "to reconstruct the seismic wavefields" and Michel "clearly discloses that the signal is modeled in Paragraph 0014." Ans. 7-8. Appellants' argument is unpersuasive of Examiner error, as we agree with the Examiner the claimed modelling encompasses the calculations of the prior art. See id. Further, Appellants have not demonstrated why the Examiner's combination rationale is erroneous or why a person of ordinary skill in the art would not have reached the conclusions reached by the Examiner. See DyStar Textilfarben GmbH & Co. Deutschland KG v. C.H. Patrick Co., 464 F.3d 1356, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2006) ("[T]he proper question is whether the ordinary artisan possesses knowledge and skills rendering him capable of combining the prior art references."). Regarding dependent claim 13, Appellants argue the Examiner erred because "Duren's time-based filter does not act in any particular direction" and "is not a spatial filter". Reply Br. 3; see also App. Br. 14. Appellants contend it is "entirely unclear" how Michel cures the deficiencies of Duren, 5 Appeal2014-003382 Application 12/370,762 because Michel fails to disclose sampling the output of a linear filter and fails to disclose or suggest a linear filter that "samples a wavefield" and "acts in the undersampled direction". Reply Br. 4; see also App. Br. 15. We are not persuaded the Examiner erred. The Examiner finds that Duren's "filter is adapted to act in the undersampled direction," (Ans. 8, citing 7: 14--20, 22--44, 54--62) and one skilled in the art, following Duren, would "adapt the linear filter to act in the undersampled direction since it is this direction that is most prone to aliasing" and that the "deficiency of Duren was cured by Michel." Ans. 9 (emphasis removed). Appellants have not persuasively provided persuasive arguments or sufficient technical evidence to challenge the Examiner's findings. 2 See, e.g., In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (attorney arguments or conclusory statements are insufficient to rebut a prima facie case). Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 1 and 13, and independent claim 15 which contains limitations commensurate with claim 1. See App. Br. 10-13. We also sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claims 2--4, 6, 11, 16-18 and 22-24, and 26 not argued separately. B. Rejection R4 Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 9 and 21, because the "Examiner's Answer fails to make any showing why the missing element necessarily flows from Vaage, other than the statement that Vaage' s system, 'must include a linear filter in his system."' Reply Br. 4, citing Ans. 2 Separately, we note claim 13 does not specify how the filter "is adapted to act in the undersampled direction." 6 Appeal2014-003382 Application 12/370,762 10. Appellants contend the "skilled artisan would appreciate that linearly combining signals does not necessarily include applying a linear filter." Reply Br. 4. Appellants advance new arguments in the Reply Brief responsive to findings from the Examiner's Final Rejection. See Final Act. 12-13. As no good cause is shown, these arguments will not be considered. See 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.41(a)(2). Appellants also argue that "[t]he skilled artisan would not have derived, however, from Goloshubin how to construct a representation of a wavefield as a combination of Duren's seismic trace data filter (i.e., a filter used for[] time-based sampling) and a basis function." App. Br. 16. We do not find Appellants' argument persuasive because the arguments with respect to the "skilled artisan" are conclusory. See id. Rather, the Examiner's findings are reasonable because the skilled artisan is "a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton," and this is a case in which the skilled artisan would "be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle." KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420, 421 (2007). Appellants additionally contend the final rejection "presumes the existence of the missing elements in Goloshubin without advancing any plausible reasons to explain why the skilled artisan would have otherwise derived the missing elements." App. Br. 16. The Examiner finds, and we agree, that "Goloshubin shows that it is known in the art of seismic prospecting to use linear combinations based on basis functions and the filtering of the seismic data." Ans. 10; Final Act. 13 (citing Goloshubin 7:42-54). Here, Appellants fail to persuasively contradict the Examiner's 7 Appeal2014-003382 Application 12/370,762 finding, 3 particularly as Goloshubin identifies "wavelet transformation" that is "used to filter an input signal," and corresponds to Appellants' disclosure of using "wavelets" as basis functions. Goloshubin 7:50-54; Spec. i-f 46. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 9, and claim 21 not separately argued. C. Rejection R5 Appellants argue the Examiner erred in citing Alam in the rejection of claims 10 and 25, because "Alam, however, does not disclose the use of a generalized matching pursuit technique to construct a substantially unaliased continuous representation of a wavefield" and instead performs "a time- frequency spectral analysis." Appeal Br. 17. Particularly, Appellants contend the Alam fails "to disclose or render obvious the use of its matching pursuit decomposition method of purposes of wavefield reconstruction." Rep. Br. 18. We are not persuaded the Examiner erred. The Examiner finds, and we agree, that "Alam shows that in seismic exploration and prospecting it is known to use a matching pursuit technique to reconstruct a seismic wavefield" and "it would be obvious to one skilled in the art to use this technique in V aage' s system in order to improve the accuracy of the reconstructed wavefield." Final Act. 14 (citing Alam Abstract, i-f 32). Appellants' argument is not persuasive as it attacks Alam individually and does not refute the Examiner's findings that the combination of the 3 Additionally, Appellants do not identify what the "missing elements" are with respect to Goloshubin. See App. Br. 16. 8 Appeal2014-003382 Application 12/370,762 references disclose or suggest the application of a generalized matching pursuit technique. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 10, and claim 25 not separately argued. D. Rejection R3 Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 12, because "the Final Office Action is improperly merging Robertsson's discussion of spatial filtering with the time-based filtering of Duren." Appeal Br. 19. We are not persuaded the Examiner erred. The Examiner finds, and we agree, that Robertsson teaches "at least one linear filter is adapted to accommodate a rough sea surface (i.e. rough sea perturbed ghost)" and "that is known in the art to adapt the filters used in the reconstruction of seismic wavefields to rough surface conditions in order to account for distorted ghost data." Final Act. 12 (emphasis removed). Appellants' argument focuses on the particular type of filter used in Robertsson but fails to contradict the Examiner's finding that the teachings of Robertsson would lead one of ordinary skill in the art to adapt a linear filter to accommodate a rough sea surface. We note claim 12 does not specify how the filter "is adapted to accommodate a rough sea surface." Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner's rejection of claim 12, and claims 7, 8, and 20 not separately argued. 9 Appeal2014-003382 Application 12/370,762 E. Rejections R2 and R6 Appellants supply no arguments regarding rejections R2 and R6; accordingly, we summarily affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 5, 14, and 19. DECISION We affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-26. 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 10