Ex Parte Wibaux et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 17, 201711945570 (P.T.A.B. May. 17, 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. 11/945,570 11/27/2007 Sebastien Wibaux MSM4-44865-US(BAT0050US2) 7609 44639 7590 05/19/2017 CANTOR COLBURN LLP- BAKER HUGHES INCORPORATED 20 Church Street 22nd Floor Hartford, CT 06103 EXAMINER HULKA, JAMES R ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3645 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/19/2017 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): usptopatentmail@cantorcolbum.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SEBASTIEN WIBAUX and VINCENTE H. GUIS Appeal 2015-007390 Application 11/945,570 Technology Center 3600 Before ANNETTE R. REIMERS, JEFFREY A. STEPHENS, and ERIC C. JESCHKE, Administrative Patent Judges. JESCHKE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Sebastien Wibaux and Vincente H. Guis (“Appellants”) seek review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s decision, as set forth in the Final Office Action dated November 6, 2014 (“Final Act.”), rejecting claims 1—4 and 9—16.1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 Appellants identify MAGNITUDE SPAS as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 1. Appeal 2015-007390 Application 11/945,570 BACKGROUND The disclosed subject matter “relates to geologic exploration and, in particular, to techniques for determining seismic events.” Spec. 2. Claim 1, the sole independent claim, is reproduced below, with emphasis added: 1. A method for identifying a seismic event, the method comprising: detecting a plurality of seismic data signals using a seismic monitoring system, each of the plurality of seismic data signals indicating energy levels; extracting by a processor an extracted portion of each of the plurality of seismic data signals based on a respective maximum energy level among the energy levels indicated by each of the plurality of seismic data signals, the extracted portion of each of the plurality of seismic data signals indicating an energy level, among the energy levels indicated by a respective one of the plurality of seismic data signals, equal to or greater than a selected proportion of the respective maximum energy level of the respective one of the plurality of seismic data signals', comparing the extracted portion of each of the plurality of seismic data signals to a known time pattern corresponding to a seismic event, and determining a correlation between the extracted portion of each of the plurality of seismic data signals and the known time pattern based on the comparing; and identifying the seismic event based on the correlation. 2 Appeal 2015-007390 Application 11/945,570 REJECTIONS 1. Claims 1—4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Johnson (US 4,203,161, issued May 13, 1980) and Peacock (US 4,751,655, issued June 14, 1988). 2. Claim 9 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Johnson, Peacock, and Drew (US 7,391,675 B2, issued June 24, 2008). 3. Claims 10 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Johnson, Peacock, and Zhou (US 2003/0151975 Al, published Aug. 14, 2003). 4. Claims 12—16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Johnson, Peacock, and Eastwood (US 2003/0043693 Al, published Mar. 6, 2003). DISCUSSION Rejection 1 — Claims 1—4 Independent claim 1 recites, among other steps: extracting by a processor an extracted portion of each of the plurality of seismic data signals based on a respective maximum energy level among the energy levels indicated by each of the plurality of seismic data signals, the extracted portion of each of the plurality of seismic data signals indicating an energy level, among the energy levels indicated by a respective one of the plurality of seismic data signals, equal to or greater than a selected proportion of the respective maximum energy level of the respective one of the plurality of seismic data signals. Appeal Br. 10 (Claims App.). 3 Appeal 2015-007390 Application 11/945,570 In the Final Office Action, the Examiner found that Johnson did not disclose this limitation, but found that Peacock did. See Final Act. 2—3 (citing Peacock, Figs. 1,3, col. 2,1. 60 —col. 3,1. 5). Appellants argue that “Peacock is directed to reconstituting seismic data that has been rectified by a scanner” and that “[i]n the cited portion . . . Peacock discusses selecting a time window ‘f for the signal from an optical scanner 14” and discloses that, “[w]ithin the selected time window ‘t,’ ... a measurement is made of a predominant period, which is a function of the predominant signal frequency.” Appeal Br. 7. Appellants argue that “[t]he Examiner errs in providing no explanation of how the predominant period relat[es] to the claimed extracting at all.” Id. In the rejection of claim 1, the Examiner cites to Figures 1 and 3 as well as column 2, line 60 to column 3, line 5 of Peacock, but provides no further explanation as to how Peacock discloses each aspect of the limitation at issue. See Final Act. 3. Having considered the disclosures relied on, we agree with Appellants that Peacock’s teachings regarding reconstitution of data do not satisfy all aspects of the limitation at issue. In the Answer, the Examiner clarifies the findings regarding the limitation at issue: Step 2 involves “extracting by a processor” a portion of each of the signals, based on a maximum energy level. This is equivalent to setting a threshold. The claim is non-specific to the absolute value, or absolute percentage of the signal that is extracted, or whether the extracted portion is of high amplitude (peak) or low amplitude (minimum). Fig. 5 of Johnson shows identified specific peak points of the wave. Secondary reference Peacock (4,751,655) teaches clipping a seismic amplitude signal (extracting a portion, based on a threshold). Ans. 3. 4 Appeal 2015-007390 Application 11/945,570 Appellants reply that, in the first sentence of this discussion, “the Examiner has erroneously omitted the word ‘respective’ before maximum energy level in the recitation of Claim 1.” Reply Br. 2. According to Appellants, “[t]he omission of this word represents a mischaracterization of the extracting as being based on a threshold.” Id. Appellants contend that: The recitation of, “the extracted portion of each of the plurality of seismic data signals indicating an energy level, among the energy levels indicated by a respective one of the plurality of seismic data signals, equal to or greater than a selected proportion of the respective maximum energy level of the respective one of the plurality of seismic data signals’ '' indicates that the extracted portion of each seismic signal (which is made up of energy levels) will include energy levels and a number of energy levels individual to the seismic signal. This is because each extracted portion is based on the maximum energy level for that seismic signal. Id. at 2—3. We agree with Appellants that, with the Answer, the Examiner has not shown that Peacock discloses all aspects of the limitation at issue. Peacock discloses that in the scanning process at issue, “oftentimes the amplitudes of the traces above a certain maximum value are clipped, i.e., removed or flattened” and the “negative values of the waveforms cannot be determined.” Peacock, col. 1,11. 34^43 (discussing Figure 1). Even assuming that the “clipping” disclosed in Peacock satisfies the requirement for “extracting by a processor an extracted portion of each of the plurality of seismic data signals”—as found by the Examiner (Ans. 3 (14, last sentence))—the Examiner has not adequately shown how that process is “based on a respective maximum energy level among the energy levels indicated by each of the plurality of seismic data signals,” rather than based on, for example, a 5 Appeal 2015-007390 Application 11/945,570 fixed range (or threshold) for every seismic data signal (i.e., trace). See Appeal Br. 10 (Claims App.) (emphasis added). For these reasons, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1, or the rejection of claims 2-4, which depend from claim 1. Rejections 2 through 4 —Claims 9—16 Claims 9—16 depend from claim 1. Appeal Br. 11 (Claims App.). The Examiner’s added reliance on Drew (Rejection 2), Zhou (Rejection 3), and Eastwood (Rejection 4) does not remedy the deficiencies in the combined teachings of Johnson and Peacock. Thus, for the same reasons discussed above, we do not sustain the rejections of claims 9—16. DECISION We REVERSE the decision to reject claims 1—4 and 9—16. REVERSED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation