The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardJun 22, 20212020002258 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 22, 2021) 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. 15/459,557 03/15/2017 Robin Mark Adrian Dawson 3898/1086 1249 2101 7590 06/22/2021 Sunstein LLP 100 High Street Boston, MA 02110-2321 EXAMINER KHALID, OMER ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2422 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/22/2021 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): usptomail@sunsteinlaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte ROBIN MARK ADRIAN DAWSON, JUHA-PEKKA J. LAINE, MURALI V. CHAPARALA, CHARLES ARANT, and MATTHEW T. JAMULA ________________ Appeal 2020-002258 Application 15/459,557 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, JASON J. CHUNG, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 6, 7, 11‒14, and 17‒21.1 Claims 1‒5 and 8‒10 were canceled. See Appeal Br. 14 (Claims App.). Claims 15, 16, and 22‒24 have been indicated as allowable and are not before us on appeal. Non-Final Act. 3. 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 Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2020-002258 Application 15/459,557 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellant’s application relates to an optical navigation system that uses monocentric lenses and curved image sensor arrays to determine the location of the navigation system. Spec. ¶¶ 2‒11. Claim 6 illustrates the appealed subject matter and reads as follows: 6. A navigation system comprising: a monocentric objective lens; a first curved digital image sensor array disposed parallel to, and spaced apart from, the lens, the first curved digital image sensor array having a shape at least approximating a portion of a sphere; a catalog; and a controller communicatively coupled to the first curved digital image sensor array and configured to match image data from the first curved digital image sensor array to image data stored in the catalog to automatically determine a location of the navigation system. The Examiner’s Rejection Claims 6, 7, 11‒14, and 17‒21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Stark (US 8,488,257 B2; July 16, 2013), McWilliams (US 7,518,792 B2; Apr. 14, 2009), van Bezooijen (US 5,745,869 Apr. 28, 1998), and Oliver (US 7,397,066 B2; July 8, 2008). Non- Final Act. 4‒33.2 2 All references to the Non-Final Office Action refer to the Non-Final Office Action entered on April 9, 2019. Appeal 2020-002258 Application 15/459,557 3 ANALYSIS The Examiner finds the combination of Stark, McWilliams, van Bezooijen, and Oliver teaches or suggests all of the limitations of claim 6. See Non-Final Act. 4‒7. In particular, the Examiner finds McWilliams teaches a telescope that matches stars in a captured image to stars in an image stored in a database to determine automatically the orientation of the telescope. Ans. 35 (citing McWilliams 4:51‒55). The Examiner finds the orientation of the telescope provides a location of the system. Id. The Examiner further finds van Bezooijen teaches determining a location of the navigation system using a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. Ans. 39 (citing van Bezooijen 5:10‒20). The Examiner finds an ordinarily skilled artisan would have added van Bezooijen’s GPS receiver to McWilliams’s celestial tracking device to determine a location of the tracking device. Id. Appellant argues the Examiner errs because the combined references do not teach or suggest “a controller . . . configured to match image data from the first curved digital image sensor array to image data stored in the catalog to automatically determine a location of the navigation system.” See Appeal Br. 8‒11; Reply Br. 1‒3. In particular, Appellant argues McWilliams teaches determining an orientation of a telescope, but an orientation of a telescope is not a location of the telescope. Reply Br. 2. Appellant argues the Examiner seems to concede this deficiency by finding that an ordinarily skilled artisan would have added van Bezooijen’s GPS receiver to determine the location of the device. Id. Appellant argues van Bezooijen’s GPS receiver determines a device’s location, but does not do so by matching image data from an image sensor to image data stored in a catalog, as Appeal 2020-002258 Application 15/459,557 4 claimed. Id. Appellant argues the Examiner has not explained sufficiently how or why an ordinarily skilled artisan would combine these teachings to arrive at the claimed subject matter. Id. Appellant has persuaded us of Examiner error. The cited portions of McWilliams teach a processor determines the orientation of a telescope by measuring angles between stars in captured images and comparing the measured angle to angles in a database. McWilliams 4:48‒55. McWilliams uses this information to track automatically the alignment of a telescope and adjust the alignment to direct the telescope at virtually any star or other celestial object specified by a user. Id. at 3:12‒18. However, the orientation of the telescope is not its location, merely the direction the telescope is pointing. The cited portions of van Bezooijen teach optical navigation may be used to compare images of a satellite captured by a camera on the ground to determine the location of the satellite, but this type of optical navigation suffers from long delays. van Bezooijen 5:10‒19. van Bezooijen also teaches satellites may use GPS receivers to determine their location. Id. at 5:20‒27. There is no teaching or suggestion in van Bezooijen that the GPS receiver determines the location by matching captured images to images in a catalog. The Examiner has not identified, nor have we found, teachings in any of the cited references of a navigation system that captures images and matches those captured images to image data stored in a catalog to automatically determine a location of the navigation system. Nor has the Examiner explained how an ordinarily skilled artisan would have combined van Bezooijen’s GPS-based location determination with McWilliams’s Appeal 2020-002258 Application 15/459,557 5 orientation determination to arrive at a system that matches captured images to images stored in a catalog to determine the location of the system. For these reasons, the Examiner fails to establish sufficiently that the references teach or suggest the disputed limitation.3 Accordingly, on this record, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 6. We also do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claims 11 and 17, which recite commensurate subject matter. Independent claims 13 and 19 do not recite matching image data “to automatically determine a location of the navigation system.” Instead, independent claims 13 and 19 recite matching image data “to provide course guidance information during a [first or second] phase of a mission.” The Examiner’s findings regarding these limitations suffer from the same deficiencies identified above with respect to claim 6. See Non-Final Act. 20; 31. Accordingly, we also do not sustain the rejection of independent claim 13 or independent claim 19 for the same reasons. By virtue of their dependency from either independent claims 6, 11, 13, 17, and 19, we also do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of dependent claims 7, 12, 14, 18, 20, and 21. SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 3 Because we agree with at least one of the dispositive arguments advanced by Appellant, we need not reach the merits of Appellant’s other arguments. Appeal 2020-002258 Application 15/459,557 6 6, 7, 11‒ 14, 17‒21 103 Stark, McWilliams, van Bezooijen, Oliver 6, 7, 11‒ 14, 17‒21 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation