Ex Parte Fenney

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 22, 2017

13720318 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 22, 2017)

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.
13/720,318 12/19/2012 Simon FENNEY 070852.000097 1378
125968 7590 08/24/2017
Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP
(ImgTec)
1909 K St., N.W.
Ninth Floor
Washington, DC 20006
EXAMINER
DU, HAIXIA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2611
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/24/2017 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):
patlaw @ vorys. com
vmdeluc a @ vorys. com
rntisdale@vorys.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SIMON FENNEY
Appeal 2016-000741
Application 13/720,3181
Technology Center 2600
Before JEAN R. HOMERE, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.
BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1—3, 5—7, and 9.2 Oral Argument was heard before this
panel on August 17, 2017. A copy of the Hearing Transcript will be placed
in the record in due course. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellant’s Brief (“App. Br.”) identifies Imagination Technologies
Limited as the real party in interest. App. Br. 1.
2 Claim 4 is also pending in the application and has been indicated to be
directed to allowable subject matter. However, it stands objected to as
depending from a rejected base claim. Final Act. 18.
Appeal 2016-000741
Application 13/720,318
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to a method and apparatus for rendering a
computer generated image of a closed polygonal contour using a stencil
buffer. Spec. Abstract. According to Appellant, “[t]he inventor has noted
that, once the stencil buffer has been set up.. .only those triangles that were
used to create the stencil that also have winding order W will be needed
when filling the object.” Spec. 13, 11. 8—15. The claimed embodiments
take advantage of this insight by dividing the polygon into a set of
primitives, and comparing the winding order of each primitive with that of
the overall contour. See, e.g., Spec. 13,11. 15—25, see also Figs. 7, 16.
Rendering is performed such that only those primitives having the same
winding as the polygon contour are subject to color or texturing processing
from the stencil buffer. Id.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A method for rendering a computer generated
image using a stencil buffer, comprising:
receiving an arbitrary closed polygonal contour, the
contour having N vertices;
dividing the arbitrary closed polygonal contour into
primitives, each primitive being a polygon having at least 3 and
at most P vertices where 2