Ex Parte van Groenestjin

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 31, 2018

14107619 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 31, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/107,619 12/16/2013
137491 7590 01/03/2019
OLYMPIC PA TENT WORKS PLLC
P.O. BOX 4277
SEATTLE, WA 98104
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Gert-Jan Adriaan van Groenestjin
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
PGS-13-22US 9077
EXAMINER
NOLAN, JOHN T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3646
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/03/2019 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):
joanne@olympicpatentworks.com
docketing@pgs.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GERT-JAN ADRIAAN VAN GROENESTJIN
Appeal2018-000649 1
Application 14/107,619
Technology Center 3600
Before DANIEL S. SONG, ERIC C. JESCHKE, and
ALYSSA A. FINAMORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
FINAMORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 appeals from the
Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-30. We have jurisdiction under
§ 6(b ).
We affirm.
1 We reference herein the Specification filed December 16, 2013 ("Spec."),
Appeal Brief filed May 11, 2017 ("Appeal Br."), and Reply Brief filed
October 23, 2017 ("Reply Br."), as well as the Examiner's Answer mailed
August 21, 2017 ("Ans.") and Final Office Action mailed December 14,
2016 ("Final Act.").
2 Appellant is the Applicant, PGS Geophysical AS, which, according to the
Appeal Brief, is the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 1.
Appeal2018-000649
Application 14/107, 619
SUBJECT MATTER ON APPEAL
The invention relates to "computational systems and methods for
attenuating noise in seismic data." Spec. ,r 22. Claims 1, 11, and 21 are the
independent claims on appeal. Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method for generating noise attenuated seismic data
obtained from a marine survey comprising:
towing two or more sources and one or more sensors
through a body of water above a subterranean formation;
for each shot location,
activating the two or more sources one at a time at
approximately the same shot location;
receiving seismic data from the sensors;
forming an initial gather of traces from the seismic
data;
generating time-shifted gathers based on the initial
gather and time delays between activation of the two or
more sources;
constructing a realization gather from traces
selected from the initial gather and the time-shifted
gathers; and
storing the realization gather in a data-storage
device.
Appeal Br., Claims. App.
REFERENCES
The Examiner relies on the following references in rejecting the
claims on appeal:
Robertsson et al. US 2011/0110188 Al
Krohn et al. US 2015/0057938 Al
2
May 12, 2011 ("Robertsson")
Feb. 26, 2015 ("Krohn")
Appeal2018-000649
Application 14/107, 619
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejects the claims on appeal as follows:
claims 1, 2, 5-9, 11-16, 18-26, and 28-30 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(a)(2) as anticipated by Krohn; and
claims 3, 4, 10, 17, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Krohn and Robertsson.
ANALYSIS
Anticipation
Independent claim 1
Appellant argues that the Examiner has not considered the
arrangement of claim elements, as anticipation requires. Appeal Br. 5
(citing Net MoneyIN, Inc. v. Verisign, Inc., 545 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir.
2008)). According to Appellant, independent claim 1 describes an operation
that is performed on an element obtained in an antecedent step. Id. More
specifically, Appellant contends independent claim 1 recites how seismic
data is obtained, i.e., "for each shot location, activating the two or more
sources one at a time at approximately the same shot location; receiving
seismic data from the sensors." Id. Appellant then asserts that the Examiner
has not shown that Krohn discloses the step of "forming an initial gather of
traces from the seismic data" because the cited portions of Krohn, i.e.,
paragraphs 12, 16, and 51, do not disclose the seismic data was obtained in
the recited manner. Id. at 5-9; Reply Br. 2--4.
Appellant also argues that the Examiner has not shown Krohn
discloses the step of "generating time-shifted gathers based on the initial
gather and time delays between activation of the two or more sources"
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Appeal2018-000649
Application 14/107, 619
because the Examiner has not identified an initial gather in the cited
paragraphs, i.e., paragraphs 12, 16, 21, and 55, or explained how the cited
paragraphs relate to the portions of Krohn allegedly disclosing the preceding
step of forming an initial gather. Appeal Br. 9--10; Reply Br. 5. Appellant
further argues that the Examiner has not shown Krohn discloses the step of
"constructing a realization gather from traces selected from the initial gather
and the time-shifted gathers" because the cited paragraph, i.e., paragraph 14,
does not disclose constructing a gather from traces selected from other
gathers or explained how the cited paragraph relates to the portions of Krohn
the Examiner relies on for disclosing the preceding steps of the claim.
Appeal Br. 10-11; Reply Br. 6.
We have carefully considered Appellant's arguments. For the reasons
discussed below, Appellant does not apprise us of Examiner error.
In rejecting independent claim 1, the Examiner finds Krohn' s marine
embodiment for using simultaneous sourcing in inversion discloses all of the
elements as arranged in the claim. Final Act. 2-3 (citing Krohn ,r,r 12, 14,
16, 20-22, 51, 52, 55, 57, Figs. 6, 8, 9). 3 In this embodiment, a marine
3 In addition to citing to Krohn's description of the marine embodiment for
using simultaneous sourcing in inversion, the Examiner cites to
paragraphs 12, 14, and 16 and Figure 6, which, as Appellant acknowledges,
provide background for the disclosed invention. Appeal Br. 5-7, 9-10;
Reply Br. 2, 4. We do not understand the Examiner to be relying on the
conventional use of simultaneous sourcing in inversion to anticipate
independent claim 1, but rather the Examiner cites to these paragraphs to
provide additional information and context for the marine embodiment. Cf
Kennametal, Inc. v. Ingersoll Cutting Tool Co., 780 F.3d 1376, 1381 (Fed.
Cir. 2015) (holding "a reference can anticipate a claim even if it 'd[oes] not
expressly spell out' all the limitations arranged or combined as in the claim,
if a person of skill in the art, reading the reference, would 'at once envisage'
the claimed arrangement or combination." ( alteration in original) ( quoting In
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Appeal2018-000649
Application 14/107, 619
spread comprises front sources 803, 804, and rear sources 807, 808. Krohn
,r 51, Fig. 8. As the sources move forward, rear sources 807, 808 follow the
same source line as front sources 803, 804, respectively. Id. Notably, every
activation location for a rear source falls on a previous activation location
for the respective front source. Id. ,r,r 22, 52, Fig. 9.
As shown in Figure 9, front sources fire shot pattern 903 at a
particular location, and source record 901 is obtained for this shot pattern.
Id. ,r 52, Fig. 9. The sources then move forward so that the rear sources
occupy the same location where the front sources previously fired shot
pattern 903, this location being depicted by the vertical dotted line. Id. At
this same location, the rear sources fire shot pattern 904, which corresponds
to shot pattern 903, and source record 906 is recorded. Id. Thus, for the
location depicted by the vertical dotted line connecting shot patterns 903 and
904 in Figure 9, both sources fire shots and gathers 901 and 906 are formed.
From source records 901, 906, a pseudo super-source record 912 is
generated. Id. ,r 53, Fig. 9. More specifically, Krohn discloses that pseudo
super-source record 912 is formed by time aligning source records 901 and
906 that were recorded at the same location. Id. Then, the pseudo
super-source records are stacked or summed to form a simultaneous source
record 1112 for the full sail line. Id. ,r 56, Fig. 11.
Accordingly, as shown in Figure 9, Krohn's marine embodiment
discloses, "for each shot location," i.e., the location shown by the vertical
dotted line connecting shot patterns 903 and 904, performing the recited
re Petering, 301 F.2d 676, 681 (CCPA 1962))). For the reasons discussed
herein, Appellant does not persuade us of error in the Examiner's finding
that Krohn's marine embodiment discloses all of the elements as arranged in
independent claim 1.
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Appeal2018-000649
Application 14/107, 619
"activating," "receiving," "forming," "generating," "constructing," and
"storing" steps. In particular, at the location depicted by this vertical dotted
line, Krohn discloses: advancing a front source and a trailing rear source
such that every activation location for the rear source falls on a previous
activation location for the front source, i.e., "activating two or more sources
one at a time at approximately the same shot location"; forming source
records 901 and 906, i.e., "forming an initial gather of traces from the
seismic data"; generating pseudo super-source record 912 by time aligning
source records 901 and 906, i.e., "generating time-shifted gathers based on
the initial gather and time delays between activation of the two or more
sources"; and summing all of the pseudo super-source records to form
simultaneous source record 1112, i.e., "constructing a realization gather
from traces selected from the initial gather and the time-shifted gathers."
In view of the foregoing, Appellant does not apprise us of error in the
Examiner's finding that Krohn's marine embodiment discloses every
element as arranged in independent claim 1. We, therefore, sustain the
Examiner's rejection of independent claim 1.
Independent claims 11 and 21
Appellant's arguments for independent claims 11 and 21 are similar to
the arguments for independent claim 1. Appeal Br. 11-16. We find these
arguments unpersuasive of error for the reasons discussed above with
respect to independent claim 1, and we similarly sustain the Examiner's
rejection of independent claims 11 and 22.
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Appeal2018-000649
Application 14/107, 619
Claims 2, 5-9, 12-16, 18-20, 22-26, and 28-30
Appellant does not present arguments for claims 2, 5-9, 12-16,
18-20, 22-26, and 28-30 apart from the arguments for the independent
claims. Appeal Br. 16. Accordingly, for the same reasons discussed above
with respect to the independent claims, we sustain the Examiner's rejection
of claims 2, 5-9, 12-16, 18-20, 22-26, and 28-30.
Obviousness
Appellant relies on the arguments for the independent claims for
claims 3, 4, 10, 17, and 27. Appeal Br. 17; Reply Br. 7. For the same
reasons as the independent claims, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of
claims 3, 4, 10, 17, and 27.
DECISION
The Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-30 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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