Ex Parte Lira

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 9, 2017

13730684 (P.T.A.B. May. 9, 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.
13/730,684 12/28/2012 Luigi Lira 19487.193.1.1.4 3488
107193 7590 05/11/2017
Keller Jolley Preece/Facebook
1010 North 500 East
Suite 210
North Salt Lake, UT 84054
EXAMINER
CHOWDHURY, AFROZA Y
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2628
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/11/2017 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):
docketing@kjpip.com
gj olley @ kj pip. com
tkusitor@kjpip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte LUIGI LIRA1
Appeal 2016-005489
Application 13/730,684
Technology Center 2600
Before JASON V. MORGAN, BRUCE R. WINSOR, and
DAVID J. CUTITTAII, Administrative Patent Judges.
CUTITTA, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final
Rejection of claims 13^44.2 This appeal is related to an appeal (2015-
002217, decided August 17, 2016) for co-pending application 12/963,444,
an appeal (2016-003573, decided February 15, 2017) for co-pending
application 13/731,351, an appeal (2017-000930, decided March 20, 2017)
for co-pending application 13/731,364, an appeal filed June 26, 2015 for co­
pending application 13/730,726 resulting in a Notice of Allowance mailed
November 19, 2015, and an appeal (2015-001776, decided August 17, 2016)
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is the applicant,
Facebook, Inc. See Appeal Br. 2.
2 Claims 1—12 are cancelled. Appeal Br. 14.
Appeal 2016-005489
Application 13/730,684
for co-pending application 13/731,382. Appeal Br. 2.3 We have jurisdiction
over this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
According to Appellant, the claimed invention relates to displaying
information on an electronic device having limited display capability.
Spec. 1. In the displaying, a portion of content is analyzed and reformatted
to fit a narrower display width, while other portions of content are also
separately analyzed, but are not reformatted. Request 2—3. In this way, a
first portion of content is formatted in a way that is independent of other
portions. Id. Claims 13, 23, 30, and 38 are independent. Claim 13 is
exemplary and is reproduced below with disputed limitations in italics:
13. A method comprising:
receiving data representative of content to be displayed within a
display window associated with a computing device;
identifying, using at least one processor and based on coding of
the content, a plurality of portions of the content and a layout of
the plurality of portions of the content;
independently formatting, using the at least one processor, a first
portion of the plurality of portions while maintaining the layout
of the plurality ofportions of the content; and
3 Throughout this Opinion, we refer to the following documents: (1)
Appellant’s Specification filed December 28, 2012 (“Spec.”); (2) the Final
Office Action (“Final Act.”) mailed February 24, 2015; (3) the Pre-Appeal
Brief Conference Request for Review (“Request”) filed July 22, 2015; (4)
the Notice of Panel Decision from Pre-Appeal Brief Review (“Panel Dec.”)
mailed August 19, 2015; (5) the Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.”) filed October
22, 2015; (6) the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) mailed February 25, 2016;
and (7) the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed April 25, 2016.
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Application 13/730,684
displaying, within the display window, the first portion of the
plurality of portions.
Appeal Br. 14 (Claims App’x).
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal includes:
TULI (“Tuli”) US 2002/0030844 A1 Mar. 14,2002
Strong et al., (“Strong”) US 6,976,226 B1 June 10, 1997
REJECTIONS4
Claims 13—44 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over the combination of Strong and Tuli. Final Act. 2—11.
Our review in this appeal is limited only to the above rejections and
issues raised by Appellant. We have not considered other possible issues
that have not been raised by Appellant and which are, therefore, not before
us. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2015).
ISSUES
1. Does the Examiner err in finding the combination of Strong and
Tuli teaches or suggests “independently formatting, using the at least one
processor, a first portion of the plurality of portions while maintaining the
layout of the plurality of portions of the content,” as recited in claim 13?
2. Does the Examiner err in combining the teachings and suggestions
of Strong and Tuli?
4 Claims 13—44 were also rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a). Final Act. 2—3.
However, this rejection has been withdrawn. Panel Dec. 2. Thus, we do not
address the merits of this rejection.
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Application 13/730,684
CONTENTIONS AND ANALYSIS
We disagree with Appellant’s contentions and we adopt as our own:
(1) the findings and reasons regarding claim 13 set forth by the Examiner in
the Office Action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 4—5) and (2)
the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response
to Appellant’s Appeal Brief (Ans. 2—4). We concur with the findings and
conclusions reached by the Examiner, and we highlight the following points
for emphasis.
Issue 1
The Examiner relies on Tuli to teach or suggest “independently
formatting ... a first portion of the plurality of portions while maintaining
the layout of the plurality of portions of the content,” as recited in claim 13.
Final Act. 4—5; Ans 2-4 (citing Tuli Tflf 24, 27).
Appellant argues the Examiner errs in finding Tuli teaches or suggests
the disputed limitation because “Tuli is silent as to . . . maintaining the
layout of the portions,” but instead describes “resizing an entire image of a
webpage and formatting text on the web page to fit within a display.”
Appeal Br. 8.
We find this argument unpersuasive. Tuli relates to “[a] host
computer [that] runs a browser taking information received from the
Internet, renders it onto a virtual display in memory, reduces the color depth,
compress[es] and sends it to [a] device” for display. Tuli Abstract. Tuli
indicates that the host computer’s browser window is set to be the same size
as the portable device’s display window for formatting purposes, “so that
text can be formatted to comfortably fit the size of the web page to be better
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Application 13/730,684
displayed without being cut off at the left or right edges, making it easy to
read.” Tuli 124. As a result, the Examiner finds “[i]t is obvious that data is
independently formatted to be shown on the browser’s window as the same
size as the portable device’s [display] window and hence [the] same layout
can be maintained.” Ans. 4 (citing Tuli 124).
Appellant, in turn, fails to provide persuasive evidence that Tuli
describes changing the format of the content nor does Appellant indicate
why Tuli would change the format in view of Tub’s disclosure that the host
computer’s browser window is set to be the same size as the portable
device’s window. Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that
Tuli suggests “maintaining the layout of the plurality of portions of the
content,” as claimed.
Appellant argues the Examiner errs in finding Tuli teaches or suggests
“independently formatting ... a first portion of the plurality of portions,” as
recited in claim 13, because “Tuli is silent as to independently formatting
portions.” Appeal Br. 8.
We find this argument unpersuasive. Tuli, in describing Figure 3,
discloses that the image 5 is divided into sections 7, 8, 9, and 10,
compressed by host computer 1, and sent to portiable device 18 for display
on display window 19. Tuli 127. Tuli states upon receipt of the
compressed data by portable device 18,
[t]he information is decompressed and displayed in the order of
priority such that part of image 7, which substantially or
completely covers the displayable area 19 (FIG. 2), of the
portable device is decompressed and displayed first and then
sequentially the portions 8, 9, 10 of the image are
decompressed and stored in an internal memory of the portable
device to be displayed later when the user scrolls up, down, or
sideways to these parts of the image.
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Application 13/730,684
Tuli 127, (boldness omitted). Consequently, in the cited portion of Tuli,
image portion 7 is decompressed before and thus, independently of, portions
8, 9, 10. The Examiner finds the claimed formatting encompasses
decompressing, as discussed in Tuli. Ans. 3. Appellant fails to demonstrate
that formatting has been explicitly defined in Appellant’s Specification in a
way that is inconsistent with the Examiner’s interpretation.
Appellant further argues that Tuli
is patentably distinct from ‘independently formatting . . .’
especially given the fact that the plurality of portions and the
layout of the portions are identified based on the coding of the
content. In contrast, Tuli merely divides the image into fourths
and then decompresses each fourth separately, regardless of the
content of the image.
Appeal Br. 9.
This argument is not responsive to the rejection, because the
Examiner relies on Strong, rather than Tuli, to teach “identifying . . . based
on coding of the content, a plurality of portions of the content and a layout
of the plurality of portions of the content,” as recited in claim 13.
Appellant next argues “paragraphs [0024] and [0027] of Tuli relate to
two alternative embodiments and their teachings are not compatible or
combinable.” Reply Br. 4 (italics omitted). We find this argument
unpersuasive because Appellant fails to sufficiently explain why the
teachings of these paragraphs are incompatible when both paragraphs relate
to the same image, namely image 5. Tuli 124, 27.
Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Tuli’s
separate decompression and display of image portion 7, before portions 8, 9,
10, suggests “independently formatting ... a first portion of the plurality of
portions,” as recited in claim 13.
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Application 13/730,684
Issue 2
Appellant argues the Examiner errs in rejecting claim 13 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on the combination of Strong and Tuli because
Strong teaches away from the proposed combination. Appeal Br. 9.
Specifically, Appellant argues “Strong teaches away from ‘maintaining the
layout of the plurality of portions of the content’ because doing so would
prevent the linearization of the webpage” causing “the web page to ‘appear
as a virtually indecipherable behemoth on the smaller screen.’” Appeal
Br. 10 (citing Strong 4:24—27).
We find Appellant’s arguments unpersuasive. “A reference may be
said to teach away when a person of ordinary skill, upon reading the
reference, would be discouraged from following the path set out in the
reference, or would be led in a direction divergent from the path that was
taken by the applicant.” In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553 (Fed.Cir.1994).
Thus, the “mere disclosure of alternative designs does not teach away.” In
re Fulton, 391 F.3d 1195, 1201 (Fed.Cir.2004). Our reviewing court has
further explained that just because better alternatives exist in the prior art
does not mean that an inferior combination is inapt for obviousness
purposes. Gurley, 27 F.3d at 553.
Strong discloses “tabular formatting may also produce sub-optimal
displays when the tabular data is displayed on a screen other than the one for
which it was formatted.” Strong 4:21—24. Hence, Strong discloses that
certain embodiments may reformat tabular data, such as a page from a
website, into a format better suited for display on a portable computing
device by removing tabular formatting from the display data. Strong 2:21—
39. Removing tabular formatting is also known as linearization. Strong
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6:40-42. In contrast with Appellant’s teaching away argument, we find
Strong suggests: (1) that there are circumstances in which tabular formatting
will produce acceptable displays, such as when the screens are similarly
sized and formatted, as in Tuli (Tuli 124) and (2) that use of tabular
formatting and different or similar size screens is governed by what one of
ordinary skill would have considered desirable for a particular application.
Accordingly, Appellant has not established that Strong unequivocally
criticizes, discredits or otherwise discourages “maintaining the layout,” as
suggested by Tuli. See Fulton, 391 F.3d at 1201.
Appellant further argues modifying Strong based on Tuli would
render Strong unsatisfactory for its intended purpose and change Strong’s
principle of operation. Appeal Br. 10-11; Reply Br. 6. Specifically,
Appellant argues “modifying the teachings of Strong to teach ‘maintaining
the layout of the plurality of portions of the content,’ would prevent the
linearization of the web page and would make Strong unsuitable for its
intended purpose (linearizing the web page) and would change Strong's
principle of operation (removing tabular formatting).” Appeal Br. 10.
At the outset, we note Appellant has mischaracterized the operation of
Strong to require removing tabular formatting in all circumstances. Strong,
in describing tabular formatting, states that “the remote data page may
contain some tabular formatting that should be preserved.” Strong 4:38-40.
Moreover, Strong’s indication that tabular formatting may produce sub-
optimal displays when the tabular data is displayed on a screen of different
size and dimensions (Strong 4:22—38) suggests there are circumstances in
which tabular formatting will produce acceptable displays such as when the
screens are similarly sized and formatted as in Tuli (Tuli 24).
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Accordingly, we do not find persuasive Appellant’s argument that the
proposed combination would render Strong unsuitable for its intended
purpose or change Strong’s principle of operation.
For the above reasons, we sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
rejection of claim 13. We also sustain the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection of
independent claims 23, 30, and 38, which are argued with independent claim
13, for similar reasons. Appeal Br. 12. Dependent claims 14—22, 24—29,
31—37, and 39-44, are not argued separately and fall with their respective
independent claims. Appeal Br. 12.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 13—44 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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