Intersil Americas LLCDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 10, 202014718844 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Mar. 10, 2020) 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. 14/718,844 05/21/2015 Itaru Hiromi 113585-1503 (SE-3069-AN) 9747 141748 7590 03/10/2020 FOLEY & LARDNER LLP 3000 K STREET N.W. SUITE 600 WASHINGTON, DC 20007-5109 EXAMINER LEE, SHUN K ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2884 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/10/2020 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): ipdocketing@foley.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ITARU HIROMI Appeal 2018-008424 Application 14/718,844 Technology Center 2800 Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, JASON V. MORGAN, and DAVID J. CUTITTA II, Administrative Patent Judges. CUTITTA, 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 1–3 and 5–10, all of the pending claims.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Oral arguments were heard on February 26, 2020. A transcript of that hearing will be added to the record in due time. We REVERSE. 1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies Intersil Americas LLC as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 2. 2 Claim 4 is cancelled. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2018-008424 Application 14/718,844 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Appellant’s claimed invention relates to “a method for use by an optical proximity detector.” Spec. ¶ 62.3 According to Appellant, “a digital distance value, [is] indicative of a distance between the optical proximity detector and [an] object” to be detected. Id. ¶ 100. Also, “a digital precision value is produced which is indicative of a precision of the digital distance value.” Id. ¶ 101. In the claimed invention, the digital precision value is determined in dependence on “an integration time of digital filters that are used to produce the digital distance value.” Appeal Br. 10. Independent claim 1 is reproduced below with limitations at issue emphasized and is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for use by an optical proximity detector that includes a light source and a light detector, the method comprising: selectively driving the light source with a drive signal having a carrier frequency to thereby cause the light source to selectively emit light having the carrier frequency; producing an analog light detection signal indicative of a magnitude and a phase of a portion of the light emitted by the light source that reflects off an object and is incident on the light detector; amplifying the analog light detection signal using amplification circuitry to thereby produce an amplitude adjusted analog light detection signal; 3 Throughout this Decision we refer to: (1) Appellant’s Specification filed May 21, 2015 (“Spec.”); (2) the Final Office Action (“Final Act.”) mailed November 30, 2017; (3) the Appeal Brief filed May 7, 2018 (“Appeal Br.”); and (4) the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) mailed June 14, 2018; and (5) the Reply Brief filed August 14, 2018 (“Reply Br.”). Appeal 2018-008424 Application 14/718,844 3 producing, in dependence on the amplitude adjusted analog light detection signal, digital in-phase and quadrature- phase signals; producing, in dependence on the digital in-phase and quadrature-phase signals, a digital distance value indicative of a distance between the optical proximity detector and the object; producing a digital DC current value, using a DC photocurrent analog-to-digital converter (DCPC ADC) coupled to the light detector, the digital DC current value indicative of a DC current produced by the light detector when the light source is not emitting light; producing, in dependence on the digital DC current value indicative of the DC current produced by the light detector when the light source is not emitting light, a digital precision value indicative of a precision of the digital distance value, wherein the producing the digital precision value includes determining the digital precision value also in dependence on: an integration time of digital filters that are used to produce the digital distance value in dependence on the digital in-phase and quadrature-phase signals; and a magnitude of the analog light detection signal produced using the light detector; outputting the digital distance value or saving the digital distance value in one or more addressable registers; and outputting the digital precision value or saving the digital precision value in one or more addressable registers. Appeal Br. 10–11 (Claims Appendix). Appeal 2018-008424 Application 14/718,844 4 REFERENCES The references4 relied upon by the Examiner are: Name Reference Date Yamashita US 6,195,197 B1 Feb. 27, 2001 Seto US 6,339,740 B1 Jan. 15, 2002 Banks US 2010/0128109 A1 May 27, 2010 Ritter US 2011/0181861 A1 July 28, 2011 Burns System design of a pulsed laser rangefinder Mar. 1991 Hebert 3-D Measurements From Imaging Laser Radars: How Good Are They? Nov. 1991 Intersil HSP50110 Mar. 2001 REJECTIONS The Examiner rejects claims 1–3, 5, 8, and 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Yamashita, Seto, Ritter, HSP50110, and Burns. Final Act. 2–6. The Examiner rejects claims 6 and 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Yamashita, Seto, Ritter, HSP50110, Burns, and Banks. Id. at 9–10. The Examiner rejects claim 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Yamashita, Seto, Ritter, HSP50110, Burns, and Hebert. Id. at 9–10. 4 All citations to the references use the first-named inventor or author only. Appeal 2018-008424 Application 14/718,844 5 OPINION We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellant and in light of Appellant’s arguments and evidence. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). Arguments not made are waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). Independent claim 1 recites, in part, “producing a digital precision value . . . wherein the producing the digital precision value includes determining the digital precision value also in dependence on: an integration time of digital filters that are used to produce the digital distance value in dependence on the digital in-phase and quadrature-phase signals.” The Examiner relies on the combined teachings of HSP50110 and Burns to teach the limitation at issue. Final Act. 5–6 (citing HSP50110, 4, 8, 10 and Burns 324–25). Appellant argues “[n]owhere does Burns mention anything about integration times of digital filters, much less filters used to produce digital distance values as explicitly set forth in the claims. . . . [A]t best, Burns describes a method for determining range error (the alleged digital precision value) based on a noise equivalent bandwidth BWN.” Appeal Br. 7. Appellant continues “[n]owhere does HSP50110 mention anything about how noise bandwidth can be set by integration times of digital filters, much less filters used to produce digital distance values as explicitly set forth in the claims.” Id. “HSP50110 teaches that BWN is not dependent on an Integrate and Dump filter (much less integration times thereof), but is instead dependent on a type of third order CIC filter used to produce a desired decimation factor” and, therefore, “it is clearly erroneous to take the position that HSP50110 teaches anything about how ‘noise bandwidth [is] Appeal 2018-008424 Application 14/718,844 6 set by integration time’ as set forth in the claims.” Id. at 8 (emphasis omitted). Appellant’s arguments are persuasive. Claim 1 requires that the digital precision value is determined “in dependence on: an integration time of digital filters that are used to produce the digital distance value.” Id. at 10. As discussed above, the Examiner finds, and Appellant agrees (Appeal Br. 7), that “‘Burns describes a method for determining range error (the alleged digital precision value) based on a noise equivalent bandwidth BWN. But Burns does not teach or suggest anything about how this term BWN is obtained or computed.’” Ans. 4. The Examiner finds “one of ordinary skill would know that the BWN will be provided in data sheets. For example, Intersil Corporation’s HSP50110 data sheet is evidence that noise equivalent bandwidth is a function of the integration time for a digital filter of an I/Q demodulator IC.” Id. In response to Appellant’s argument that HSP50110 does not teach “how noise bandwidth can be set by integration times of digital filters, much less filters used to produce digital distance values as explicitly set forth in the claims” (Appeal Br. 7), the Examiner notes that even though “the references fail to show certain features of appellant’s invention, . . . the features upon which appellant relies (i.e., a specific digital filter) are not recited in the rejected claim(s)” (Ans. 5). We disagree with the Examiner because claim 1 does require determining the digital precision value in dependence on an integration time of specific digital filters, i.e., “digital filters that are used to produce the digital distance value in dependence on the digital in-phase and quadrature- phase signals.” Accordingly, the features upon which Appellant’s argument Appeal 2018-008424 Application 14/718,844 7 relies are recited in claim 1. Furthermore, the Examiner does not show how HSP50110 teaches determining the digital precision value in dependence on an integration time of digital filters, as recited in claim 1, because the Examiner does not sufficiently explain how noise equivalent bandwidth is a function of the integration time for the digital filters discussed in HSP50110. The rejection relies, in part, on HSP50110’s Table 3, which shows noise equivalent bandwidth for different filters. HSP50110’s Table 3 is reproduced below: Appeal 2018-008424 Application 14/718,844 8 HSP50110 describes Table 3, in part, as including “[a] summary of equivalent IF BN’s for different filter configurations and decimation rates.” HSP50110, p. 10. The Examiner relies on Table 3’s illustration of various decimation rates (“DEC”) to teach an integration time of the claimed digital filter. Specifically, the Examiner finds, In this case, the scope of the “digital filters” includes any digital filter that can be used to produce the digital distance value in dependence on the digital in-phase and quadrature-phase signals. As discussed above, one of ordinary skill would program the I/Q demodulator IC (e.g., with an integration time of 10 DEC for 0.5525 noise equivalent bandwidth using a 3rd order CIC) so as to achieve a desired bandwidth for detection of in-phase (I) and quadrature-phase (Q) data in order to extract range (i.e., distance) information by a demodulate calculation. Therefore the scope of the “digital filters” includes 3rd order CIC digital filter within a commercially available I/Q demodulator IC that can be used to produce the digital distance value in dependence on the digital in-phase and quadrature- phase signals. Ans. 5–6. The Examiner, however, has not sufficiently shown how HSP50110’s decimation rate, i.e., the cited decimation rate of 10 in row 2 of Table 3— teach an integration time, as claimed. As argued by Appellant, the Examiner’s finding that the ‘“decimation rate is equivalent to the number of samples in the integration period’” is insufficient to establish that HSP50110 teaches or suggests “that the number of samples in an integration period is the same as an integration time of digital filters as is expressly set forth by the claims.” Reply Br. 2 (emphasis omitted). Appeal 2018-008424 Application 14/718,844 9 Because the Examiner has not sufficiently shown that HSP50110 teaches “an integration time of digital filters that are used to produce the digital distance value in dependence on the digital in-phase and quadrature- phase signals,” we find persuasive Appellant’s argument that the Examiner has not shown the cited combination teaches “determining the digital precision value also in dependence on: an integration time of digital filters,” as recited in claim 1. Because we agree with at least one of the dispositive arguments advanced by Appellant for claim 1, we need not reach the merits of Appellant’s other arguments. Accordingly, based on the record before us, we do not sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of independent claim 1, and, for the same reasons, of dependent claims 2, 3, and 5, 8 and 9. With respect to the remaining obviousness rejections of claims 6, 7, and 10, the Examiner does not rely on either of the additionally cited references, Banks and Hebert, to cure the deficiency noted in relation to claim 1. Final Act. 9–11. Accordingly, we do not sustain these obviousness rejections for the reasons set forth above in relation to claim 1. CONCLUSION We reverse the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–3 and 5–10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Appeal 2018-008424 Application 14/718,844 10 DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § References Affirmed Reversed 1–3, 5, 8, 9 103 Yamashita, Seto, Ritter, HSP50110, Burns 1–3, 5, 8, 9 6, 7 103 Yamashita, Seto, Ritter, HSP50110, Burns, Banks 6, 7 10 103 Yamashita, Seto, Ritter, HSP50110, Burns, Hebert 10 Overall Outcome 1–3, 5–10 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation