HANWHA TECHWIN CO., LTD.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 30, 2020

2019005644 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 30, 2020)

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.
14/279,435 05/16/2014 Sang Jin YUN HT70002 9762
71433 7590 12/30/2020
McLean IP Global
333 Wabash Avenue, Suite 2700
Chicago, IL 60604
EXAMINER
LEE, JIMMY S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2483
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/30/2020 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):
contact@mcleanip.com
jason.pahng@gmail.com
jason.pahng@mcleanip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD

Ex parte SANG JIN YUN and HYUCK RAE KIM

Appeal 2019-005644
Application 14/279,435
Technology Center 2400

Before JASON J. CHUNG, CARL L. SILVERMAN, and
MICHAEL T. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–22. Appeal Br. 6. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as HANWA
TECHWIN CO. LTD. Appeal Br. 2.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claimed invention generally relates to controlling a plurality of
cameras in a surveillance system. Spec. ¶ 2. A first camera mutually
connects with other cameras in the system to enable efficient operation of
the system. Id. ¶ 8. The first camera may be controlled to receive and
analyze information about the idle time of other cameras in the system, and
transmit tasks of the first camera to the other cameras. Id. ¶ 10. These tasks
are organized through a job queue for each camera. Figs. 5, 12.
Independent claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A method of controlling a camera which is connected to
at least one other camera and at least one client terminal
through a communication network, the method comprising:
controlling the camera to receive and analyze information about
an idle time of each of the at least one other camera;
according to the analyzing, controlling the camera to request the
at least one other camera to execute at least one task of the
camera on behalf of the camera by transmitting the at least one
task of the camera and/or information about the at least one task
of the camera to the at least one other camera,
wherein the idle time of each of the at least one other camera is
set to a time remaining before each of the at least one other
camera is configured to execute a task among one or more tasks
of each of the at least one other camera or a sum of time
durations at which no tasks are allocated to each of the at least
one other camera, and
wherein the at least one task of the camera is scheduled to be
executed by the camera according to a job queue of the camera.
.

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REFERENCES
Name Reference Date
Giesen US 2009/0027509 A1 Jan. 29, 2009
Shin et al.
(“Shin”)
US 2010/0046640 A1 Feb. 25, 2010
Bhan US 2011/0273567 A1 Nov. 10, 2011
Wagner et al.
(“Wagner”)
US 2011/0286631 A1 Nov. 24, 2011
Boghossian et
al.
(“Boghossian”)
US 2013/0208124 A1 Aug. 15, 2013
Ooi US 2013/0250120 A1 Sept. 26, 2013

REJECTIONS
Claims 1–5 and 16–22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
obvious over the combination of Boghossian and Bhan.
Claims 6–8, 14, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
obvious over the combination of Boghossian, Bhan, and Ooi.
Claims 9 and 11–13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
obvious over the combination of Boghossian, Bhan, Ooi, Wagner, Giesen,
and Shin.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over the
combination of Boghossian, Bhan, Wagner, Giesen, and Shin.

OPINION
We have reviewed the Examiner’s obviousness rejections (Final Act.
6–21, Ans. 18–25) in light of Appellant’s contentions that the Examiner has
erred (Appeal Br. 6–16, Reply Br. 2–14). We are persuaded by Appellant’s
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contention of Examiner error in rejecting claims 1–22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
over the applied prior art.
For claim 1, Appellant presents the issues of whether the combination
of Boghossian and Bhan teaches or suggests each of the recited features, and
whether the Examiner has articulated a rationale supporting a conclusion of
obviousness. The Appellant argues against claims 2–22 on the same
reasoning, and separately against claim 22 on argument that not all features
of claim 22 have been taught or suggested by the applied prior art.
We begin with Appellant’s first argument against claim 1, whether the
combination of Boghossian and Bhan teaches or suggests, “wherein the at
least one task of the camera is scheduled to be executed by the camera
according to a job queue of the camera.” Appeal Br. 7. The Examiner finds
Boghossian to teach or suggest “wherein the at least one task . . . of the
camera . . . is scheduled to be executed by the camera . . . according to a job
queue of the camera.” Final Act. 6 (citing Boghossian ¶¶ 14, 96). The
Examiner points to Boghossian’s establishing of tracklets that correspond to
time tracking of an object in a camera field of view as a task. Ans. 19. The
Examiner finds that the tracklets are jobs to be processed that are related to
time, and that the tracking is therefore a job queue consisting of these
individual time-related tracklets. Id. The Examiner further finds that the
claim term “job queue” would be met by a sequence of one task, and thus by
Boghossian’s task of tracking an object in fields of view. Id. at 20. The
Examiner further finds Boghossian’s “tracking task [of] organizing the
camera nodes to follow the track of the tracking object is similar to the
scheduling being claimed as it related to the task of tracking.” Id.
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Appellant argues that Boghossian does not teach a camera having a
job queue as claimed. Appeal Br. 7–8. Appellant characterizes Boghossian
as tracking the path that an object makes through a camera’s zone of view –
not a task performed by or on behalf of the camera. Id. at 8. Appellant
characterizes the tracking as providing the start and end time points that the
tracked object enters and exits the camera’s zone of view. Id. Appellant
provides a definition of a “queue” in the computer arts as “a sequence of
messages or jobs held in temporary storage awaiting transmission or
processing.” Id. at 9 (quoting https://www.merriamwebster.com/
dictionary/queue (1 November 2018)). Appellant argues that the task of
tracking an object travelling across camera view areas is not a “job queue”
under the term’s plain and ordinary meaning. Id. at 10; Reply Br. 5.
Appellant further argues that in Boghossian, the task of tracking an object is
not a task “of the camera,” as claimed, but of the network. Id. at 11; Reply
Br. 3, 7.
When construing claim terminology during prosecution before the
Office, claims are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation
consistent with the Specification, reading claim language in light of the
Specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the
art. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir.
2004). However, the broadest reasonable interpretation differs from the
broadest possible interpretation. In re Smith Int’l, Inc., 871 F.3d 1375, 1383
(Fed. Cir. 2017); see also MPEP § 2111 (“The broadest reasonable
interpretation does not mean the broadest possible interpretation. Rather, the
meaning given to a claim term must be consistent with the ordinary and
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customary meaning of the term (unless the term has been given a special
definition in the specification), and must be consistent with the use of the
claim term in the specification and drawings.”). The correct inquiry in
giving a claim term its broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the
specification is “an interpretation that corresponds with what and how the
inventor describes his invention in the specification, i.e., an interpretation
that is ‘consistent with the specification.’” Smith, 871 F.3d at 1382–83
(quoting In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997)). We are
mindful, however, that limitations are not to be read into the claims from the
Specification. In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument. Claim 1 requires a “task .
. . scheduled to be executed by the camera according to a job queue of the
camera.” The Examiner points to Boghossian’s tracking as the task, where
the queue may involve tracklets or it may be the tracking itself. Ans. 19–20.
Boghossian defines a “track” as pertaining to the details defining the
presence of an object. Boghossian ¶ 9. These details are “just data defining
where the object starts and ends in the sequence [of video frames] and at
times corresponding to the starting and ending points.” Id. ¶¶ 9–10.
Boghossian’s “tracklets” are defined within a database through metadata.
Id. ¶ 80. Boghossian describes the tracking as being performed not by the
camera, but instead by a remote video surveillance system including a video
management server for handling video data received from the cameras in the
network, and processing that data to track viewed objects. See Boghossian
¶ 53.
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We do not agree with the Examiner that the broadest reasonable
interpretation of “wherein the at least one task of the camera is scheduled to
be executed by the camera according to a job queue of the camera” is met by
these teachings of Boghossian. Specifically, we do not agree that the
broadest reasonable interpretation of “task of the camera . . . scheduled to be
executed by the camera” includes Boghossian’s tracking of a viewed object
by a remote server by processing data obtained from cameras. Nor do we
agree that the broadest reasonable interpretation of “executed by the camera
according to a job queue of a camera” includes such tracking of objects at a
server using camera data, or includes the creation and storage of tracklets
that are data corresponding to the times at which objects enter or leave a
viewed area. Consequently, we are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that
the Examiner has not shown the broadest reasonable interpretation of the
claimed “task of a camera [that] is scheduled to be executed by the camera
according to a job queue of the camera” to be taught or suggested by
Boghossian.
For that reason, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner erred in
rejecting claim 1 over Boghossian in view of Bhan. Because each of the
rejections of claims 1–22 rely on Boghossian to teach or suggest this feature,
we agree that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1–22 as being obvious
over the applied prior art. Therefore, we need not reach Appellant’s other
arguments concerning the sufficiency of the rationale to combine references
and whether other limitations of claims 1 and 22 are taught or suggested by
the applied prior art. Consequently, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of
claims 1–22.
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CONCLUSION
For the above-described reasons, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection
of claims 1–22 as being obvious over the applied references under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103.

DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § References/Grounds Affirmed Reversed
1–5, 16–
22
103 Boghossian, Bhan, 1–5, 16–
22
6–8, 14,
15
103 Boghossian, Bhan,
Ooi
6–8, 14,
15
9, 11–13 103 Boghossian, Bhan,
Wagner, Giesen, Ooi
Shin
9, 11–13
10 103 Boghossian, Bhan,
Wagner, Giesen,
Shin
10
Overall
Outcome
1–22

REVERSED