Ex Parte Abello

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 21, 2014

10513007 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 21, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte LLUIS ABELLO
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Appeal 2012-002222
Application1 10/513,007
Technology Center 2600
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Before DONALD E. ADAMS, JEFFREY N. FREDMAN, and
ULRIKE W. JENKS, Administrative Patent Judges.

JENKS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 involving claims directed to
processing an image for printing. The Examiner has rejected the claims as
obvious. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Specification provides that “[b]y ordering the processing of
image data into data collections or blocks which correspond to portions of an
image to be printed by the various groups of image generation elements, the
processing can be improved.” (Spec. 4, ll. 9-11.) “By dividing the image

1 Appellant identifies Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP as the
Real Party in Interest. (App. Br. 1.)
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into slices in the manner specified, an array of inkjet printheads lying
transversely across the print medium advance direction can be subdivided
into the sets belonging to the individual print engines, and each print engine
processes a different slice and prints that slice with its own set of
printheads.” (Id. at 7, ll. 22-25.)
Claims 47-53 are on appeal, and can be found in the Claims Appendix
of the Appeal Brief. Claim 47 is representative of the claims on appeal, and
reads as follows (emphasis added):
47. A method of processing input data representative of an
image for printing by a printing system, the method comprising:
selecting a first set of data items relating to a first slice of
the image to be printed;
selecting a second set of data items relating to a second
slice of the image to be printed;
with a first print engine, processing said first set of data
items and printing said first slice of the image; and
with a second print engine, processing said second set of
data items and printing said second slice of the image;
wherein said first and second print engines operate in
parallel to simultaneously print said first and second slices of
the image on a print medium which passes the print engines in a
print medium advance direction and said slices share a
boundary lying parallel to a print medium advance direction
and wherein each engine processes data items sequentially
within each slice along columns lying parallel to the print
medium advance direction,
wherein processing of at least one data item of the first
set of data items depends on one or more data items of the
second set of data items, and processing of at least one data
item of the second set of data items depends on one or more
data items of the first set of data items, such that the first data
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set of data items is mutually exclusive with the second data set
of data items in that no data item of the first data set is part of
the second data set and in that no data item of the second data
set is part of the first data set.
The following ground of rejection is before us for review:
Claims 47-53 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Silverbrook ’4462 in view of Silverbrook ’106.3
The Issue
The Examiner finds that Silverbrook ’446 “explains the concept of
printing slices of an image with a right and left printing system” and
provides “first and second print engines [that] operate in parallel to
simultaneously print said first and second slices of the image on a print
medium” (Ans. 6). The Examiner acknowledges that Silverbrook ’446 “fails
to explicitly disclose wherein processing of at least one data item of the first
set of data items depends on one or more data items of the second set of data
items” and looks to Silverbrook ’106 for this teaching (Ans. 7).
The Examiner concludes that
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the
art at the time the invention was made for the method of
processing input data using first and second print engines to
print first and second slices of an image as disclosed by
Silverbrook ’446 to utilize the teachings of Silverbrook ’106
wherein the processing of at least one data item of the first set
of data items depends on one or more data items of the second
set of data items, and processing of at least one data item of the
second set of data items depends on one or more data items of

2 Silverbrook ’446, US 5,984,446, issued Nov. 16, 1999.
3 Silverbrook ’106, US 6,623,106 B2, issued Sept. 23, 2003.
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the first set of data items to avoid double printing of the same
data and/or eliminate possible gaps in the image data.
(Ans. 7-8.)
Does the preponderance of the evidence of record support the
Examiner’s conclusion that the claims are obvious?
Findings of Fact
FF1. Silverbrook ’446 disclosed “a controller system for a high
speed color printer with a compressed document store, which can
simultaneously expand four compressed page images for real time duplex
printing.” (Silverbrook ’446, col. 46, ll. 3-6 (emphasis added); see also
Ans. 6.)
FF2. Silverbrook ’446 disclosed that “[h]aving a separate printing
system for each page that is to be printed simultaneously avoids problems
with switching the context of the JPEG data stream for each band of the two
page set from the JPEG compressed image of one page to that of the other
page.” (Silverbrook ’446, col. 46, ll. 58-62; see also Ans. 6.)
FF3. Silverbrook ’106 disclosed that “the printhead is digitally
controlled such that print data sent to the overlapping portions of adjacent
modules is shared between the ink nozzles of the adjacent modules to avoid
double printing of the same data.” (Silverbrook ’106, col. 3, ll. 18-21; see
also Ans. 7.)
FF4. Silverbrook ’106
When producing data for the printhead, care must be
taken when placing dot data into nozzles corresponding to the
overlap region. If both nozzles fire the same data, then twice as
much ink will be placed onto the pages in overlap areas.
Instead, the dot data generator should start placing data into
chip S at the start of the chip overlap region while removing the
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data from the corresponding nozzles in chip S+l, and ramp
stochastically across the overlap area so that by the end of the
overlap area, the data is all allocated to nozzles in chip S+ 1.
(Silverbrook ’106, col. 7, ll. 19-28.)
Principle of Law
“[O]bviousness requires a suggestion of all limitations in a claim.”
CFMT, Inc. v. Yieldup Int’l. Corp., 349 F.3d 1333, 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2003).
Analysis
Appellant contends that “[a] data item of a first data set cannot be said
to be processed dependent upon a data item of a second data set, if the data
items have not yet been separated into the two data sets, such that the
performing such separation, per Silverbrook in view of Silverbrook, cannot
be construed as this processing, per the claimed invention.” (Reply Br. 2
(emphasis omitted); see also App. Br. 4.)
The Examiner explains that
The term “processing”, given its broadest reasonable
interpretation, encompasses any process implemented on the
image data prior to physically outputting the image on a
substrate. The “dependency”, as claimed, seems to reference
separating the image data as to be “mutually exclusive . . . in
that no data item of one set of data is part of the other. The
applicant fails to particularly point out in the claim the type of
“processing” which is being implemented and fails to show that
the meaning of the term processing is different than that as
interpreted and relied upon from the prior art cited.
(Ans. 12.)
A claim must be given its broadest reasonable interpretation
consistent with the Specification as it would be interpreted by one of
ordinary skill in the art. In re Yamamoto, 740 F.2d 1569, 1571 (Fed. Cir.
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1984); In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (“During patent
examination the pending claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms
reasonably allow.”). Based on the cited references, however, broadly
interpreting the claim is of no avail because the Examiner has not explained
why one of ordinary skill in the art would have known to separate a single
image into multiple data items before processing these data items to be
mutually exclusive.
Silverbrook ’446 disclosed a process of printing four separate images
using four separate print engines to achieve the simultaneous printing of four
separate image pages (FF 1 & 2). The Examiner has provided no teaching or
explanation that provides a reason for separating a single image into multiple
slices so that each slice can be processed by a separate print engine as
required by the claim. The Examiner looks to Silverman ’106 for teaching
the processing of an image into data slices so that each data item is mutually
exclusive from the other data item (FF 3 & 4). The Examiner, however, has
not explained why one of ordinary skill, familiar with the Silverbrook ’446
(FF 1 & 2) would have a reason to separate a single image into multiple data
items for the simultaneous printing before processing each data item to be
mutually exclusive with the adjacent data item. Without a reason, or
evidence that this step is ordinarily performed in the process of preparing
image data for printing, the Examiner has not established a prima facie case
of obviousness.

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SUMMARY
We reverse the rejection of claims 47-53 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
over Silverbrook ’446 in view of Silverbrook ’106.

REVERSED

cdc