BP Corporation North America Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jun 2, 2020

2019004611 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 2, 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.
14/994,295 01/13/2016 Benjamin Moseley 500762 2993
4249 7590 06/02/2020
CAROL WILSON
BP AMERICA INC.
150 West Warrenville Road
MC 200-1W
Naperville, IL 60563
EXAMINER
TURNER, BRIAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2894
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/02/2020 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):
bppatentus@bp.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte BENJAMIN MOSELEY

Appeal 2019-004611
Application 14/994,295
Technology Center 2800
____________

Before KAREN M. HASTINGS, MICHAEL G. McMANUS, and
JANE E. INGLESE, Administrative Patent Judges.

McMANUS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 seeks review of the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–15. 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. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as BP
Corporation North America Inc. Appeal Brief dated Nov. 30, 2018
(“Appeal Br.”) Br. 2.
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Application 14/994,295

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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER

The present application generally relates to seismic exploration and
seismic imaging. Specification filed Jan. 13, 2016 (“Spec.”) ¶ 2. The
Specification indicates that “seismic exploration is the seismic survey
through which data representative of a subterranean formation is acquired.”
Id. ¶ 3. This may include imparting a signal into a subterranean formation
where it interacts with various structural features of the subterranean
formation. The signal is reflected to the surface where it is recorded and
analyzed to yield information regarding the structure of the subterranean
formation. Id. ¶ 4.
The Specification teaches that “[m]arine seismic surveys suffer from a
phenomenon known as ‘ghost reflections’ that cause some data to be
canceled from the record of the survey.” Id. ¶ 5. A ghost signal arises in a
marine environment where a part of a signal propagates upward through the
water and is then reflected downward at the water’s surface. Id. ¶ 6. This
reflected signal “will enter the ground, propagate through the subterranean
formation, and be returned back to the seismic receivers a short time after
the first arrival of the primary seismic signal. That is, it is a ghost of the
primary seismic signal.” Id. This is called a “source side” ghost reflection.
Id. ¶ 8. In addition, the primary seismic signal, returning toward the sensors
after reflection by the subterranean formation, may be further reflected by
the water’s surface and propagate toward the formation a second time
yielding a second ghost reflection. Id. ¶ 7. This is called a “receiver side”
ghost reflection. Id. ¶ 8.
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It is desirable to improve the quality of seismic data by removing the
ghost effect. Id. ¶ 9. The Specification teaches that “[t]he presently
disclosed technique offers broadband processing that can be used in the post-
stack domain with a 1 D model-based approach that may be called Stack
Ghost Suppression (‘SGS’).” Id. ¶ 29. The Specification teaches that the
“SGS workflow model” may be expressed as a particular equation (Equation
3) where the amplitude and phase components are separated across two
separate values rather than being aggregated together. Id. ¶ 30. The
Specification additionally teaches that “[t]he filter is the model as described
above into which selected values for one or more of the parameters ramp, rph,
and fn have been assigned. The filter compensates for amplitude due to the
presence of the ghost reflection separately from the phase.” Id. ¶ 42.
Claims 1 and 13 are illustrative of the subject matter on appeal and is
reproduced below with certain language bolded for emphasis:
1. A method, comprising:
designing a filter for suppressing the effect of a ghost
reflection in a set of stacked, marine seismic data
representative of a subterranean formation, the filter
compensating for amplitude due to the presence of the
ghost reflection separately from the phase due to the
presence of the ghost reflection, the designing including:
iteratively defining at least one parameter of the filter and
applying the defined filter to the seismic data;
evaluating each iteration of the filter’s application to at least
a subset of the seismic data; and
selecting a defined filter from one of the evaluated
iterations; and applying the filter to the seismic data to
suppress the effect of ghost reflection.

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13. A computer-implemented process, comprising:
accessing a set of stacked, marine seismic data;
receiving at least one input parameter to a one-dimensional
model of a ghost reflection, the model separating the
amplitude and the phase of the ghost reflection;
applying the model using the input parameter to the seismic
data to suppress the ghost reflection;
iterating the receipt of the input parameter and the application
of the model;
receiving a selection for one of the input parameters from the
iterative application of the model; and
applying the model using the selected input parameter to the
seismic data to suppress the ghost reflection;
wherein the accessing, the applying, and the iterating, are
performed by a processor.
Appeal Br. 15 (Claims App.) (emphasis added).
REFERENCES
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art:
Name Reference Date
Parkes et al. (“Parkes”) US 2013/0201791 A1 Aug. 8, 2013
Fletcher et al.
(“Fletcher”)2
US 2013/0107665 Al May 2, 2013

2 The Examiner does not specifically rely on Fletcher in concluding that
claims 1–15 are obvious over Parkes. The Examiner cites Fletcher as
“pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.” Final Act. 13.
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DISCUSSION
The Examiner rejects claims 1–15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Parkes. Final Action dated May 21, 2018 (“Final Act.”)
5–10.3
In support of the rejection of claim 1, the Examiner finds that Parkes
teaches “applying the filter to the seismic data to suppress the effect of ghost
reflection (¶ 0031: correct for the phase- and/or amplitude-spectrum).” Id. at
6. The Examiner further finds that
[a]lthough Parkes does not explicitly teach the filter
compensating for amplitude due to the presence of the ghost
reflection separately from the phase due to the presence of the
ghost reflection, Parkes does teach the filter compensates for the
amplitude and phase (¶ 0039), and further teaches separately
correcting for phase effects (¶ 0040).

Id. In view of the foregoing, the Examiner determines that one of skill in the
art would have had reason “to configure the process taught by Parkes to
further comprise compensating for amplitude separately from the phase, as a
means to provide the separate phase processing taught by Parkes (¶ 0040).”
Id. The Examiner makes similar findings with regard to independent claim
13. Id. at 8–9.
Appellant argues that the rejection is in error. Appeal Br. 11–13
(arguing claims collectively). Appellant contends that, “while Parkes
teaches one embodiment that compensates solely for phase, in the
embodiment where it compensates for both amplitude and phase it teaches

3 In the Final Action, the Examiner rejected claims 1–15 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 101 as directed to ineligible subject matter. Final Act. 2–5. This rejection
was withdrawn in the Examiner’s Answer. Answer 3.
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that such compensation occurs at the same time.” Id. at 12. Accordingly,
Appellant argues, the filter of Parkes does not compensate for amplitude
separately from phase. Id.
In regard to the Examiner’s stated reason to modify the teachings of
Parkes, Appellant states that “the Office infers a suggestion of separately
compensating for amplitude and phase as recited in the claims from Parkes
embodiment in which he compensates solely for phase.” Id. at 13.
Appellant argues that “Parkes actually discloses an embodiment that
compensates for both amplitude and phase and it does not do so separately.
There consequently is no legitimate reason to infer such a suggest[ion] other
than to read on Applicants’ claims.” Id.
In the Answer, the Examiner asserts that independent claims 1 and 13
do not require separating the reflection parameter (r) into amplitude (ramp)
and phase (rph) components. Examiner’s Answer dated March 19, 2019
(“Answer”) 4. The Examiner additionally finds that “Parkes discloses a de-
signature filter with phase compensation (time shift of one set of sub-source
seismic data) separate from amplitude compensation (two sets of sub-
sources are subtracted).” Id. As a result, the Examiner determines that “this
embodiment of Parkes includes two separate steps, one for phase correction
of a seismic data sub-set, and one for summing two sub-sets of the seismic
data for amplitude correction.” Id.
Claim 1 requires “a filter for suppressing the effect of a ghost
reflection . . . the filter compensating for amplitude due to the presence of
the ghost reflection separately from the phase due to the presence of the
ghost reflection.” Appeal Br. 15 (Claims App.) (emphasis added). We first
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consider the claim limitation requiring “compensating for amplitude . . .
separately from the phase.”
In this regard, the Specification teaches an embodiment where “the
ghost reflection coefficients ramp and rph and the ghost reflection frequency,
fn, can be set independently.” Spec. ¶ 35 (emphasis added). The
Specification further teaches that “one aspect of the presently disclosed
technique is that it can control the amplitude and phase of the ghost
reflection in the filter design separately. Figure 3A and Figure 3B illustrate
this separate control.” Spec. ¶ 50. Figures 3A and 3B are reproduced
below.

The Specification teaches that “Figure 3A plots the amplitude 302 and the
phase 304 of a filter obtained using Eq. (1), which is a filter known to the
art. Figure 3B plots the amplitude 306 and the phase 308 of a filter obtained
using Eq. (3).” Id. The Specification additionally teaches that “[t]he post-
stack SGS operator used in Figure 3B achieves stability by both accounting
for notch diversity and allowing the user to separately reduce and vary the
strength of the amplitude and phase corrections in the 1 D operator
design.” Id. ¶ 51 (emphasis added).
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Based on the foregoing, we determine that claim 1’s limitation of
“compensating for amplitude . . . separately from the phase” requires that the
values be determined independently such that compensation for one does not
directly affect the value of the other.
In the Answer, the Examiner finds that Parkes’ teaching of the “time
shift of one set of sub-source seismic data” satisfies the phase compensation
limitation. Answer 4. The Examiner further finds that Parkes’ teaching that
“two sets of sub-sources are subtracted” satisfies the amplitude
compensation limitation. Id. Accordingly, the Examiner finds that the
“compensating for amplitude . . . separately from the phase” limitation is
met. The Examiner further finds, in the context of designing a designature
filter, that Parkes teaches to “correct for the phase- and/or amplitude-
spectrum.” Id. (citing Parkes ¶ 31).
In its Reply Brief, Appellant argues that “Parkes uses two steps
because it uses two different filters-one solely for amplitude and one solely
for phase.” Reply Brief dated May 17, 2019 (“Reply Br.”), 4. Appellant,
however, does not cite to evidence that specifically supports such assertion.
Id. Nor is such support apparent from review of Parkes. Nor does Appellant
offer a proposed construction of the term “filter.” Accordingly, Appellant
has not shown error in this regard.
Appellant additionally argues that “Parkes applies the two separate
filters to two separate data sets.” Id. Again, Appellant does not cite to
evidence that specifically supports such assertion nor is it apparent from
review of Parkes. Nor does Appellant offer briefing regarding the specific
requirements of the limitation “suppressing the effect of a ghost reflection in
a set of stacked, marine seismic data representative of a subterranean
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formation.” Id. (citing claim 1). Accordingly, Appellant has not shown
error in this regard.
Appellant additionally makes certain general allegations of error (see
Reply Br. 5) but does not offer sufficient support for such allegations to
present an issue for appeal. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (“the brief shall
contain . . . . The arguments of appellant with respect to each ground of
rejection, and the basis therefor, with citations of the statutes, regulations,
authorities, and parts of the Record relied on. The arguments shall explain
why the examiner erred as to each ground of rejection contested by
appellant.”).

CONCLUSION

The Examiner’s rejection is affirmed.
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–15 103 Parkes 1–15

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).

AFFIRMED