Yazaki CorporationDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 31, 20222022000087 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 31, 2022) Copy Citation 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. 16/110,087 08/23/2018 Tomotake WAKATSUKI Q241642 1089 23373 7590 03/31/2022 SUGHRUE MION, PLLC 2000 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, N.W. SUITE 9000 WASHINGTON, DC 20006 EXAMINER LI, GRACE Q ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2611 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/31/2022 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): PPROCESSING@SUGHRUE.COM USPTO@sughrue.com sughrue@sughrue.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ________________ Ex parte TOMOTAKE WAKATSUKI and KAZUYOSHI OGASAWARA ________________ Appeal 2022-000087 Application 16/110,087 Technology Center 2600 ________________ Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and JASON V. MORGAN, Administrative Patent Judges. MORGAN, 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, 3, 5, and 6. Claims 2 and 4 are canceled. Appeal Br. 16-17 (Claims App.). An oral hearing was held March 10, 2022. A transcript will be entered into the record in due course. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies Yazaki Corporation as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2022-000087 Application 16/110,087 2 SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE Appellant’s claimed subject matter relates to “a vehicle display device and a display control method.” Spec. 1. REFERENCES The Examiner relies on the following references (only the first named inventor of each reference is listed): Name Reference Date Lee US 2017/0187963 A1 June 29, 2017 Bhalla US 2018/0059416 A1 Mar. 1, 2018 Kusanagi US 2018/0373030 A1 Dec. 27, 2018 Kimura US 2019/0049724 A1 Feb. 14, 2019 Nobuaki JP 2009023651 A (App. No. JP,2008-215429) Feb. 5, 2009 REJECTIONS The Examiner rejects claims 1, 3, 5, and 6 as follows: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Citation 1, 5, 6 103 Kimura, Lee, Kusanagi, Nobuaki Final Act. 2-7 3 103 Kimura, Lee, Kusanagi, Nobuaki, Bhalla Final Act. 7-8 ANALYSIS Claim 1, which is representative with respect to itself and claims 3, 5, and 6, is reproduced below (disputed limitations emphasized and bracketing added). Appeal 2022-000087 Application 16/110,087 3 1. A vehicle display device comprising: a display that projects a display image in front of a driver of a vehicle and causes the display image to be displayed superimposed on a real landscape in front of the vehicle; a front area camera that captures the real landscape in front of the vehicle and acquires a front area image; and a processor configured to: detect a position of a pair of colored lines sandwiching a lane extending to an area in front of the vehicle from the front area image and set an area between the pair of colored lines as a drawing area that has a shape extending on the lane from the area in front of the vehicle along the colored line on the basis of coordinates indicating the position of the colored line in the front area image in a case in which there is not a preceding vehicle on the lane; detect the position of the pair of colored lines and a position of the preceding vehicle from the front area image and set an area surrounded by the pair of colored lines and the preceding vehicle as the drawing area that has a shape extending on the lane from the area in front of the vehicle along the colored line without overlapping the preceding vehicle on the basis of coordinates indicating the position of the colored line in the front area image and coordinates indicating the position of the preceding vehicle in a case in which the preceding vehicle is present on the lane; draw an information image including route guidance information on the display image to be informed to the driver in the drawing area on the basis of a shape of the drawing area, and transform the information image in accordance with a change in a shape of the drawing area in the display image; and display a part of the information image superimposed on the preceding vehicle, in case of an inter-vehicle distance between the vehicle and the Appeal 2022-000087 Application 16/110,087 4 preceding vehicle is shorter than a distance that can secure the size of the drawing area required to secure the visibility of the information image, [1] wherein the processor is configured to increase a transmittance of an entirety of the information image, more than when the information image is displayed only in the drawing area, when the part of the information image is superimposed on the preceding vehicle. Appeal Br. 15-16 (Claims App.). In rejecting claim 1 as obvious, the Examiner finds that Nobuaki’s image brightness adjustment teachings, combined with Lee and Kusanagi, teach or suggest recitation [1]. Final Act. 6 (citing Nobuaki ¶ 11). Appellant contends the Examiner errs because in Nobuaki, “if part of an image displayed on a windshield overlaps, in a driver’s view, with some external object (a traffic sign for example . . . ), then a brightness of the displayed image is decreased so that the driver can see the [external object, such as a traffic sign,] better.” Appeal Br. 13. Appellant argues that decreasing a displayed image’s brightness is the opposite of the limitation of “increas[ing] a transmittance.” Id. Appellant argues that the Specification shows that such an increase makes “the displayed image more visible to the user not less visible.” Id. (citing Spec. 23-24); Reply Br. 5. To this end, Appellant submitted that “[t]o increase the transmittance of the displayed image means that the displayed image becomes more visible. Whether that’s by making the image darker or brighter, the point is that the driver can see that displayed image better.” Transcript (forthcoming). Appellant’s arguments are not persuasive of Examiner error because neither the claim limitations nor the Specification define increasing transmittance of an image to mean making the image more visible-an Appeal 2022-000087 Application 16/110,087 5 interpretation of the claim limitations that is at odds with the commonly accepted meaning of “transmittance.” Recitation [1] includes limitations for increasing transmittance of an information image when part of the information image is superimposed on a preceding vehicle. Recitation [1] also notes that in this scenario, the transmittance is “more” than when the information image is displayed only in a drawing area. But recitation [1] is silent as to what it means for transmittance to be increased or “more.” In particular, the Specification discloses that in a case in which an inter-vehicle distance between the vehicle 100 and the preceding vehicle 30 is short, a drawing area 23 with a necessary size is unable to be secured, and the conspicuousness of the information image 25a drawn in the drawing area 23a is likely to decrease. In this regard, transmittance of the entire information image 25a or the guide graphic 26a may be increased, and a part of the information image 25a may be displayed superimposed on the preceding vehicle 30. Spec. 23-24. (cited in Appeal Br. 8, 13). But this disclosure fails to define what it means for transmittance to be increased. This disclosure, which states that “[i]n this regard, transmittance . . . may be increased,” does not even show that the disclosed increase in transmission represents an action taken to change how the image is displayed, rather than merely characterizing how the image is perceived. We further note that the Specification fails to include any figure illustrating an information image superimposed on a preceding vehicle, and showing such an information image with increased transmittance. This omission not only leaves the meaning of transmittance open to a broad interpretation that may not accord with Appellant’s subjective understanding Appeal 2022-000087 Application 16/110,087 6 of the scope of the disputed recitation, it may also represent a material deficiency in the application. See MPEP § 608.02(d) (Complete Illustration in Drawings); Ex parte Good, 164 Off. Gaz. Pat. & Trademark Office 739 (“[t]he question is not whether one skilled in the art can decipher the invention, but whether the drawing is so clearly and artistically executed as to facilitate a ready understanding of the invention”); 37 C.F.R. § 1.83(a) (“[t]he drawing[s] in a nonprovisional application must show every [non- conventional, essential] feature of the invention specified in the claims”); 35 U.S.C. § 113 (“[t]he applicant shall furnish a drawing where necessary for the understanding of the subject matter sought to be patented”). Aside from the lack of clarity in the claim limitations and Specification, the Examiner’s proffered interpretation of increasing transmittance to encompass increasing the transparency of an image (Ans. 10) better accords with the commonly accepted meaning of transmittance than Appellant’s proffered interpretation. See, e.g., Ivo Ihrke, Computer Vision: A Reference Guide 562 (Katsushi Ikeuchi, ed., 2014) (“[o]pacity describes the degree to which an object or material is not transmitting light. Sometimes the opposite is referred to as transmittance . . . . [i]n computer graphics, the opposite of opacity is typically referred to as transparency”). For these reasons, we agree with the Examiner that Nobuaki’s image brightness adjustment teachings, combined with Lee and Kusanagi, teach or suggest recitation [1]. Even if we were to accept Appellant’s interpretation of increasing transmittance of an information image to mean making the image more visible (i.e., more opaque or less transparent), the combination of Lee, Kusanagi, and Nobuaki also shows that making an information image more Appeal 2022-000087 Application 16/110,087 7 visible would have been obvious. In particular, Nobuaki shows that adjusting the brightness of an image affects the transparency of the image, thus affecting the visibility of the image when projected over an obstacle. Nobuaki ¶¶ 11-12. Although Nobuaki gives an example of a signboard that should be visually recognized, and thus be less obscured by an image projected over it, Lee gives an example of a collision risk, such as another vehicle, to be avoided. Lee ¶¶ 157-59. Moreover, Lee illustrates that a first graphic image warning of the collision risk (i.e., an information image) is displayed opaquely over the collision risk (specifically, a vehicle), thus drawing attention to the warning even though details of the collision risk (i.e., details about the vehicle) are obscured by the warning. Id. Fig. 17. Therefore, it would have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill to increase the visibility of an information image, part of which is superimposed on a preceding vehicle, to draw attention to the risk of collision with the preceding vehicle. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claim 1, and claims 3, 5, and 6, which Appellant does not argue separately. CONCLUSION In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 5, 6 103 Kimura, Lee, Kusanagi, Nobuaki 1, 5, 6 3 103 Kimura, Lee, Kusanagi, Nobuaki, Bhalla 3 Overall Outcome 1, 3, 5, 6 Appeal 2022-000087 Application 16/110,087 8 TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE No time period for taking 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 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation