Lenovo (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 22, 2020

2019003360 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 22, 2020)

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.
14/446,490 07/30/2014 John Carl Mese RPS920140185USNP(710.417) 4380
58127 7590 12/22/2020
FERENCE & ASSOCIATES LLC
409 BROAD STREET
PITTSBURGH, PA 15143
EXAMINER
CHU, DAVID H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2616
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/22/2020 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JOHN CARL MESE, RUSSELL SPEIGHT VANBLON,
NATHAN J. PETERSON, and ARNOLD S. WEKSLER
Appeal 2019-003360
Application 14/446,490
Technology Center 2600
Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, JASON V. MORGAN, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.
BENNETT, 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 1–5 and 7–23. Claim 6 has been
cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Lenovo
(Singapore) PTE. LTD. Appeal Br. 3.
Appeal 2019-003360
Application 14/446,490

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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to automatically scaling content in a graphical
user interface in order to make the content more visible for the user. Claim
1, reproduced below, is representative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method, comprising:
displaying, using a display device, data;
identifying a viewer viewing at least a portion of the data;
detecting, using a processor, the at least a portion of the
data does not meet at least one visibility criterion associated with
the identified viewer, wherein the visibility criterion is based
upon the at least a portion of the data not being viewable by the
identified viewer; and
automatically scaling, using a processor, the at least a
portion of the data to a predetermined viewable size, wherein the
predetermined viewable size is derived at least in part from at
least one characteristic related to the identified viewer and at
least in part from content included within the portion of the data,
wherein at least two different content types for the identified
viewer are scaled differently.
Appeal Br. 29 (Claims Appendix).
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REFERENCES2
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
Fowers US 9,035,874 B1 May 19, 2015
Kurtenbach US 2004/0001112 A1 Jan. 1, 2004
Yamasaki US 2009/0154763 A1 June 18, 2009
Omansky US 2010/0077316 A1 Mar. 25, 2010
Chowdhry US 2012/0229518 A1 Sept. 13, 2012
Li US 2014/0078178 A1 Mar. 20, 2014
Sosinski US 2014/0267438 A1 Sept. 18, 2014
Nagata US 2015/0378340 A1 Dec. 31, 2015
REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 2, 5, 10, 13, 14, 16, 20 and 23 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Sosinski, Yamasaki, Fowers, Li,
and Nagata. Final Act. 5.
Claims 7 and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Sosinski, Yamasaki, Fowers, Li, Nagata, and Omansky.
Final Act. 12.
Claims 11 and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Sosinski, Yamasaki, Fowers, Li, Nagata, and Kurtenbach.
Final Act. 13.
Claims 12 and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Sosinski, Yamasaki, Fowers, Li, Nagata, and Chowdhry
Final Act. 14.

2 All citations herein to the references are by the first named inventor/author
only.
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Application 14/446,490

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ISSUES
First Issue: Has the Examiner erred in determining that Fowers
constitutes analogous art to Appellant’s invention?
Second Issue: Has the Examiner erred in determining that the cited
references teach or suggest the “detecting” limitation of claim 1?
Third Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Fowers teaches or
suggests “identifying a viewer viewing at least a portion of the data,” as
recited in claim 1?
Fourth Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Li teaches or
suggests “wherein the predetermined viewable size is derived at least in part
from at least one characteristic related to the identified viewer,” as recited in
claim 1?
Fifth Issue: Has the Examiner erred in determining that Nagata
constitutes analogous art to Appellant’s invention?
ANALYSIS
First Issue
In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner relies in part on Fowers. See Final
Act. 7. Appellant argues the Examiner’s reliance on Fowers is improper
because “Fowers is directed to a wholly different field of endeavor and is,
therefore, non-analogous art.” Appeal Br. 20. Appellant describes Fowers
as being “directed to a system for providing user input to a computing device
with an eye closure” and alleges “that Fowers never discusses with, or even
mentions, scaling data based upon an identified user.” Appeal Br. 20 (citing
Fowers Abstract). According to Appellant, “providing user input to a
computing device with an eye closure . . . cannot be considered an analogous
to ‘scaling data automatically.’” Appeal Br. 20. Appellant further asserts
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that Fowers does not address the same problem or have the same purpose as
Appellant’s invention, and therefore “would not have logically commended
itself to the Applicant’s attention.” Appeal Br. 20.
We are not persuaded of error. A reference is analogous art if it
satisfies one of two separate tests: (1) the art is from the same field of
endeavor, regardless of the problem addressed and, (2) if the reference is not
within the field of the inventor’s endeavor, the reference still is reasonably
pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor is involved. In re
Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citing In re Deminski, 796 F.2d
436, 442 (Fed. Cir. 1986) and In re Wood, 599 F.2d 1032, 1036 (CCPA
1979)).
Appellant argues that Fowers is from a different field of endeavor
from the claimed invention because Fowers is entitled “User Input to a
Computing Device with an Eye Closure” and Appellant’s title is “Scaling
Data Automatically.” Appeal Br. 20. Appellant merely compares the title of
Fowers with the title of Appellant’s Specification. However, there is no
substantive comparison of the subject matter disclosed in either Fowers or
the Specification. Appellant does not identify or otherwise indicate the field
of endeavor of the present invention based on any description in the
Specification, nor does Appellant explain why the disclosure of Fowers is
outside of any such field. We observe that both Fowers and Appellant’s
invention can be fairly characterized as being in the field of user interfaces
for computer displays.
Nevertheless, we need not decide if Fowers and Appellant’s invention
are in the same field of endeavor because Fowers easily satisfies the second
test for analogous art—that the reference is reasonably pertinent to the
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problem faced by the inventor. Appellant’s Specification teaches that
“[w]ith the abundance of display devices (e.g., flat panel displays, smart
phone displays, monitors, televisions, etc.) available for a user to view data,
with each having their own resolution and display size, a user is likely to
have to resize the data that they are attempting to view.” Spec. ¶ 2. The
Specification notes that in these situations “[t]he user may then need to
resize the webpage, for example by zooming in on the text, change in the
screen resolution, increasing the font size, and the like, to make the text
readable.” Spec. ¶ 2. The Specification further notes that technological
advancements have led to higher resolution displays which allow for
“sharper text and images, but may also cause a user to have an [to] resize a
window to reach an optimal viewing resolution.” Spec. ¶ 14. According to
the Specification, the need to resize data and/or content creates a situation
such that “a user must make a manual adjustment in order to resize a
window.” Spec. ¶ 16. Thus, Appellant’s Specification demonstrates that the
inventor was concerned with problems relating to readability of text on
computer screens, and ways to make content more readable.
In the Background section, Fowers describes that increasing use of
portable computing devices that lead to a problem that “data is often not
organized or presented in a way that is intuitive for many users,” and limited
screen size can make it “difficult for a user to locate information due to the
size of the various icons or elements.” Fowers col. 1, ll. 11–12, 14–15.
Thus, like Appellant’s Specification, Fowers addresses problems relating to
the usability of graphical elements presented on small computer screens.
A person of ordinary skill in the art concerned with the problem of
readability of small text on computer screens, would find Fowers reasonably
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pertinent to those problems. Although Fowers describes a different
approach to addressing the issue of small size graphical elements, the fact
that Fowers seeks to solve these issues, albeit in a different way, would have
logically commended itself to the inventor’s attention. As such, Fowers is
analogous art to the present invention.
Second Issue
Claim 1 recites the limitation:
detecting . . . the at least a portion of the data does not meet at
least one visibility criterion associated with the identified user,
wherein the visibility criterion is based upon at least a portion of
the data not being viewable by the identified viewer,
Appeal Br. 29 (Claims Appendix). In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner finds
Yamasaki teaches or suggests this limitation. Final Act. 6 (Yamasaki ¶¶ 11,
62, 67, 86; Figure 5).
Appellant argues Yamasaki is deficient because it merely teaches
“comparison of the character to a predetermined character.” Appeal Br. 23.
Appellant asserts that “Yamasaki’s teaching of a user being able to set the
value of the predetermined character size is still comparing the character to a
predetermined character and not to a visibility criterion as per the claimed
limitations.” Appeal Br. 24. According to Appellant, “Yamasaki
specifically compares the character to a predetermined character size.”
Appeal Br. 24 (citing Yamasaki Abstract, ¶¶ 10, 91).
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument. The cited portions of
Yamasaki describe a process by which characters in a document are
analyzed to determine whether they are too small to read by determining if
they are smaller than a readable character size. Yamasaki describes that “a
character which is extremely small in size and not recognizable in printing is
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determined and enlarged to that of a recognizable size.” Yamasaki ¶ 11.
Although Appellant asserts that Yamasaki’s predetermined character size
cannot be a “visibility criterion,” Appellant does not provide any explanation
or reasoning in support of this assertion. To wit, Appellant does not provide
any definition for what a “visibility criterion” encompasses, nor does
Appellant explain why the recited “visibility criterion” cannot encompass a
character size selected based on whether it is readable or not. As such, we
are not persuaded of error with respect to the “detecting” limitation of
claim 1.
Third Issue
Claim 1 also recites the limitation “identifying a viewer viewing at
least a portion of the data.” Appeal Br. 29 (Claims Appendix). The
Examiner finds this limitation taught by Fowers. Final Act. 7 (citing Fowers
col. 3, ll. 23–48).
Appellant does not appear to dispute that Fowers teaches this
limitation. Rather, Appellant contends “that even if Fowers teaches
‘identifying a viewer viewing at least a portion of the data,’ there is no
motivation to combine Fowers with any of the other references, at least
because Fowers is directed to a wholly different field of endeavor and is,
therefore, non-analogous art.” Appeal Br. 24–25 (internal citation omitted).
We are not persuaded by this argument because, as we explained
above in connection with the First Issue, Fowers qualifies as analogous art
to the claimed invention. Therefore, we are not persuaded of error with
respect to the “identifying” limitation of claim 1.
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Fourth Issue
Appellant also challenges the Examiner’s findings with respect to the
limitation “wherein the predetermined viewable size is derived at least in
part from at least one characteristic related to the identified user,” as recited
in claim 1. Appeal Br. 25. In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner finds this
limitation taught by Li. Final Act. 7–8 (citing Li ¶ 40); Ans. 4. More
specifically, the Examiner finds that “Li teaches the concept of associating
user preference data (i.e., user preferred zoom level) with a user profile.”
Final Act. 7 (citing Li ¶ 40). The Examiner explains that this description in
Li teaches the limitation because “[t]he user set preferred zoom level is
preference data associated with characteristics of the user.” Final Act. 8.
Appellant argues the Examiner’s findings are in error because “user
preference data is not the same as the claimed characteristic related to the
identified viewer.” Appeal Br. 25.
We are not persuaded of error because Appellant does not explain
why user preference data cannot be a “characteristic related to the identified
viewer.” Appellant’s argument merely asserts that user preference data
differs from a characteristic related to the identified viewer, but does not
explain what that difference may be. The phrase “characteristic related to
the identified viewer” is broad, and encompasses any feature or quality that
relates to the viewer. Li describes that zooming level preferences are user-
specific and user-selected. Li ¶ 40 (“[T]he present disclosure allows a set of
preferences (for display orientation and zooming) to be remembered and
applied separately and individually for each profile of the user.”). In sum, Li
teaches that the zooming level is predetermined based on a user’s preference
as expressed in a user profile. We agree with the Examiner that this
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disclosure in Li teaches or suggests the recited “wherein the predetermined
viewable size is derived at least in part from at least one characteristic
related to the identified user,” and we are not persuaded of error.
Fifth Issue
Claim 1 also recites the limitation that the “predetermined viewable
size” is derived “at least in part from content included within the portion of
the data, wherein at least two different content types for the identified viewer
are scaled differently.” Appeal Br. 29 (Claims Appendix). The Examiner
relies on Nagata for this limitation. Final Act. 8–9 (citing Nagata ¶ 9),
Ans. 4–5 (finding that Nagata is analogous art because “Nagata addresses a
method of improving visibility of content (text and graphics).”).
Appellant challenges the Examiner’s use of Nagata, arguing that it
constitutes non-analogous art because “Nagata is directed to a system for
providing a display that provides an indication of a failure from a PLC.”
Appeal Br. 26 (citing Nagata ¶ 47); see also Reply Br. 28–29. Appellant
further argues that “Nagata does not teach what is alleged by the Office,”
asserting that “Nagata never discusses, or even mentions, scaling data based
upon content included within the portion of data or that at least two different
content types for the identified viewer are scaled differently.” Appeal
Br. 26.
We are not persuaded of error. Appellant’s analogous art argument
directed at Nagata suffers from the same problems as the argument made
with respect to Fowers. Appellant asserts that Nagata would not have been
reasonably pertinent to the particular problem faced by the inventor, but
Appellant does not identify the problem that the inventor faced, nor does
Appellant identify the problems faced by Nagata. In order to demonstrate
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error in the Examiner’s analogous art finding, it is insufficient to merely
assert that the allegedly non-analogous art is not reasonably pertinent to the
problems faced by the inventor without identifying what those problems are
or how the problems addressed by the reference differ from those problems
faced by the inventor. As such, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner erred
in finding Nagata is analogous art to the claimed invention.
Appellant also argues that “Nagata does not teach what is alleged by
the Office.” Appeal Br. 26. Appellant’s argument does not persuade us of
error. Appellant’s argument merely asserts that “Nagata never discusses, or
even mentions, scaling data based upon content included within the portion
of data or that at least two different content types for the identified viewer
are scaled differently.” Appeal Br. 26. As noted above, the Examiner relies
on paragraph 9 of Nagata as teaching the scaling of both graphics and text to
make them more readable. Appellant provides, however, no discussion of
how paragraph 9 is deficient. Appellant’s only specific reference to Nagata
characterizes other portions of the reference not relied upon in the rejection.
Appeal Br. 26 (discussing Nagata Abstract and ¶ 47). To show error on the
part of the Examiner, however, Appellant must address the basis of rejection
of the Examiner actually made—Nagata ¶ 9. In this case, without any
explanation for how Nagata ¶ 9 is deficient, Appellants argument amounts to
only an assertion of patentability without any supporting argument. See 37
C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (“A statement which merely points out what a claim
recites will not be considered an argument for separate patentability of the
claim.”). Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred with
respect to Nagata, and we sustain the rejection of claim 1.
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Remaining Claims
Appellant presents no separate arguments for patentability of any
other claims. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of these
claims as they fall together with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
CONCLUSION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject the claims.
DECISION SUMMARY
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 2, 5, 10,
13, 14, 16,
20, 23
103 Sosinski, Yamasaki,
Fowers, Li, Nagata
1, 2, 5, 10, 13,
14, 16, 20, 23

7, 17 103 Sosinski, Yamasaki,
Fowers, Li, Nagata,
Omansky
7, 17
11, 21 103 Sosinski, Yamasaki,
Fowers, Li, Nagata,
Kurtenbach
11, 21
12, 22 103 Sosinski, Yamasaki,
Fowers, Li, Nagata,
Chowdhry
12, 22
Overall
Outcome
1–5, 7–23

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
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AFFIRMED