Matthew D. Zeiler et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Aug 27, 2019

14952530 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Aug. 27, 2019)

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.
14/952,530 11/25/2015 Matthew D. Zeiler 033248-0444491 6997
27500 7590 08/27/2019
PILLSBURY WINTHROP SHAW PITTMAN LLP (CV)
ATTENTION: DOCKETING DEPARTMENT
P.O BOX 10500
McLean, VA 22102
EXAMINER
MARANDI, JAMES R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2421
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/27/2019 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):
Docket_IP@pillsburylaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte MATTHEW D. ZEILER, ADAM L. BERENZWEIG,
and CHRISTOPHER YAN1
____________________

Appeal 2018-002281
Application 14/952,530
Technology Center 2400
____________________

Before JENNIFER S. BISK, JOYCE CRAIG, and
STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges.

BISK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Final
Rejection of claims 1, 2, 4–11, and 13–18, which are all claims pending in
the application. Appellants have canceled claims 3 and 12. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). An oral hearing was held on August 13,
2019.

1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as CLARIFAI, INC. Appeal
Br. 2.
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We affirm.
BACKGROUND2
Appellants’ disclosed embodiments and claimed invention relate to
“user interfaces used for video production, editing, review, and/or
management.” Spec. ¶ 2. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the
subject matter on appeal (emphasis added to contested prior-art limitations):
1. A system for browsing, searching, and/or viewing video
content via a user interface based on associated semantic labels,
the system comprising:
a computer system comprising one or more
hardware processors and electronic storage, the electronic
storage storing machine-readable instructions that, when
executed by the one or more hardware processors,
configure the one or more hardware processors to:
effectuate presentation of a first video on a
user interface, the user interface being configured
to display scenes of the first video and semantic
labels associated with the scenes of the first video,
the presentation of the first video comprises
display of a first scene of the first video and a first
semantic label associated with the first video;
obtain, during the presentation of the first
video, a user request for in-video content relevant
to one or more user-provided parameters of the
user request;

2 Throughout this Decision we have considered the Specification filed
November 23, 2016 (“Spec.”), the Final Rejection mailed March 10, 2017
(“Final Act.”), the Appeal Brief filed July 5, 2017 (“Appeal Br.”), the
Examiner’s Answer mailed November 2, 2011 (“Ans.”), and the Reply Brief
filed December 28, 2017 (“Reply Br.”)
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perform, based on the user request, a query
for one or more semantic labels related to the one
or more user-provided parameters;
determine, based on the performed query, a
second semantic label associated with a second
scene of the first video to be relevant to the one or
more user-provided parameters;
effectuate, during the presentation of the
first video, a change from the first scene of the first
video to the second scene of the first video based
on the determination of the second semantic label
being relevant to the one or more user-provided
parameters and the second semantic label being
associated with the second scene of the first video.
Appeal Br. 8 (Claims App’x).
REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 2, 4, 9–11, 13, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as being unpatentable over the combination of US 2008/0184121 A1,
published July 31, 2008 (“Kulas ’121”), and US 2008/0031590 A1,
published Feb. 7, 2008 (“Kulas ’590”). Final Act. 3–7.
Claims 5–8 and 14–17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the combination of Kulas ’121, Kulas ’590, and Beitao Li,
Kingshy Goh, & Edward Y. Chang, Confidence-based Dynamic Ensemble
for Image Annotation and Semantics Discovery, ACM, Nov. 2003 at 195
(“Li”). Final Act. 7–10.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the § 103 rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments that the Examiner erred. For the reasons explained below, we
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concur with the Examiner’s conclusions concerning unpatentability under
§ 103. We adopt the Examiner’s findings and reasoning for the § 103
rejections in the Final Office Action and Answer. See Final Act. 3–10; Ans.
11–19. We add the following to address and emphasize specific findings
and arguments.
Rejection of Claims 1, 2, 4–11, and 13–18 Under 35 U.S.C. § 103
Appellants argue all the rejected claims together. Appeal Br. 5–7;
Reply Br. 2–6. As permitted by 37 C.F.R. § 41.37, we decide the Appeal for
the rejection of all rejected claims based on claim 1. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
Specifically, Appellants argue that Kulas ’590 fails to disclose the last
two limitations of claim 1, “determine, based on the performed query, a
second semantic label associated with a second scene of the first video to be
relevant to the one or more user-provided parameters” and
effectuate, during the presentation of the first video, a change
from the first scene of the first video to the second scene of the
first video based on the determination of the second semantic
label being relevant to the one or more user-provided
parameters and the second semantic label being associated with
the second scene of the first video.
Appeal Br. 5–7.
First, Appellants argue that Kulas ’590 describes switching between
two different videos, one without tags and one with tags, instead of switching
between two different scenes of the same video. Id. at 5–6. The Examiner,
however, effectively rebuts this argument by pointing out that Kulas ’590
explicitly discloses that its approach also works with “only one video
sequence” with tags “simply added into the video frames.” Ans. 15 (quoting
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Kulas ¶ 36). Appellants do not dispute this teaching from paragraph 36 of
Kulas ’590. See Reply Br.
Second, Appellants argue that Kulas ’590 does not teach “a change
from a first frame of the gadget tag sequence 203 to a second frame of the
style tag sequence 205 based on” a determination of a performed query on
semantic labels. Appeal Br. 6–7; Reply Br. 3–5. Instead, according to
Appellants, “the selection of the tag sequence in Kulas ’590 merely overlays
the tags on the video in which scenes change regardless of the selection of
the tag sequence.” Reply Br. 5. This argument, however, is not persuasive
because it is an attack on Kulas ’590 individually, while the Examiner relies
on the combined disclosures in both Kulas ’121 and Kulas ’590 to reject the
claims. Final Act. 3–6; Ans. 18.
Where a rejection rests on the combined disclosures in the references,
an appellant cannot establish nonobviousness by attacking the references
individually. See In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Here, the combined disclosures in Kulas ’121 and Kulas ’590 teach the
disputed limitations of determining a second semantic label associated with
a second scene based on a performed query and changing from the first
scene to the determined second scene. See Final Act. 3–6; Ans. 18.
Specifically, Kulas ’121 discloses a database for searching tags that are
associated with a particular scene or time period of a video and retrieving a
list of scenes based on that search. Kulas ’121 ¶ 49. And Kulas ’590
discloses that the display of video can be changed based on user selection.
Kulas ’590 ¶ 32. Although Kulas ’590 discloses that the change of video is
between video without showing tags and video showing tags, we agree with
the Examiner that a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that
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such disclosure can be combined with Kulas ’121’s disclosure of searching
for particular tags and retrieving particular scenes that are relevant to that
search. This combination results in searching for tags, retrieving particular
scenes, and changing the display based on that user input—as recited in the
claims.
CONCLUSION
We conclude Appellants have not demonstrated the Examiner erred in
rejecting claims 1, 2, 4–11, and 13–18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
DECISION
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). See
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f).
AFFIRMED