Ex Parte Børresen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 27, 2017

12803503 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 27, 2017)

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.
12/803,503 06/29/2010 Claes Nicolai B0rresen PGS-10-13US 6490
95738 7590 10/31/2017
Petroleum Geo-Services, Inc.
West Memorial Place 1
15375 Memorial Drive Suite 100
Houston, TX 77079
EXAMINER
LOBO, IAN J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3645
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/31/2017 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):
docketing@pgs.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte CLAES NICOLAI B0RRESEN and
STIG RUNE LENNART TENGHAMN
Appeal 2016-003104
Application 12/803,503
Technology Center 3600
Before JENNIFER D. BAHR, WILLIAM A. CAPP, and
RICHARD H. MARSCHALL, Administrative Patent Judges.
BAHR, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Claes Nicolai Borresen and Stig Rune Lennart Tenghamn
(Appellants)1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
decision, set forth in the Final Action (June 3, 2014; hereinafter “Final
Act.”) rejecting claims 1—14 and 25.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as PGS GEOPHYSICAL AS.
Appeal Brief 3 (Oct. 20, 2014; hereinafter “Appeal Br.”).
2 Claims 15, 17—20, and 22—24 have been withdrawn from consideration.
Final Act. 1 (Office Action Summary); Appeal Br. 17, 18 (Claims App.).
Appeal 2016-003104
Application 12/803,503
THE CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Claim 1, reproduced below, is the only independent claim involved in
this appeal, and is illustrative of the claimed subject matter.
1. A seismic survey system, comprising:
at least one marine seismic streamer, wherein each
streamer includes a plurality of spaced apart sensor units, and
wherein each of the sensor units is adapted to receive a
command and to operate in an enabled state or a disabled state
dependent upon the command; and
a data recording and control unit that generates a
configuration table specifying an enabled/disabled condition
for each of the sensor units and, based on the configuration
table, issues commands to enable or disable selected sensor
units to provide a compressed sensing arrangement of
enabled sensor units,
wherein the data recording and control unit further
collects and stores data from enabled sensor units.
REJECTIONS3
I. Claims 1—3, 5,7, 11, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Nemeth (US 7,382,690 B2, issued
June 3, 2008) and Pavel (US 8,135,543 B2, issued Mar. 13, 2012).
II. Claims 1—3, 5, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Siems (US 4,117,448, issued Sept. 26, 1978) and
Pavel.
III. Claims 1—3, 5—12, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Woods (US 4,967,400, issued Oct. 30, 1990)
and Pavel.
3 The Examiner has withdrawn all rejections relying on Maier
(EP 0 289 172, published Nov. 2, 1988). Ans. 3^4 (stating that “the
reference to Maier is not being used in any of the rejections”).
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Application 12/803,503
IV. Claims 13 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Nemeth or Woods in view of Pavel and Boergen
(US 7,623,414 B2, issued Nov. 24, 2009).
V. Claim 4 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over any of Nemeth, Siems, and Woods in view of Pavel and M.P.
(US 2008/0028099 Al, published Jan. 31, 2008).
DISCUSSION
Claim 1 requires, in pertinent part, “a data recording and control unit
that generates a configuration table specifying an enabled/disabled condition
for each of the sensor units and, based on the configuration table, issues
commands to enable or disable selected sensor units to provide a
compressed sensing arrangement of enabled sensor units.’ '’ Appeal Br. 16
(Claims App.) (emphasis added).
The Examiner found that each of Nemeth, Woods, and Siems
discloses a system substantially as recited in claim 1, including a data
recording and control system that issues commands to enable or disable
selected sensor units, except that these references do not specifically disclose
“that the data recording and control unit generates a configuration table
specifying the enabled/disabled condition for each of the sensor units.”
Final Act. 3^4. The Examiner construed the language “to provide a
compressed sensing arrangement of enabled sensor units” in claim 1 as “an
intended use recitation.” Id. at 2 (underlining omitted).
Appellants argue, and we agree, that “the compressed sensing
arrangement limitation is not merely an intended use recitation that can be
ignored,” but, rather, is “part [of] a functional limitation that limit[s] the
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Application 12/803,503
claimed ‘data recording and control unit’ by what it does rather than what it
is.” Appeal Br. 9. Appellants’ Specification discloses that “[t]he issuing of
the enable or disable command may include determining an arrangement of
enabled sensor units that would support compressed sensing, and the issued
commands may create this arrangement.” Spec. 110. Thus, in accordance
with Appellants’ Specification, we construe “a data recording and control
unit that. . . issues commands to enable or disable selected sensor units to
provide a compressed sensing arrangement of enabled sensor units” as
requiring a data recording and control unit that issues enable/disable
commands that create an arrangement of enabled sensor units that
specifically supports “compressed sensing,” as described in paragraph 3 of
Appellants’ Specification and as discussed in more detail infra.
The Examiner construes “a compressed sensing arrangement of
enabled sensors [as meaning] having greater sensor density of enabled
sensors.” Ans. 5. The Examiner finds that Pavel teaches providing such an
arrangement, at column 1, lines 51—60, “where it is shown that one of
ordinary skill in the art is well aware of the need for greater density of
sensors (enabled) for purposes of 3D seismic imaging.” Id. at 5—6.
As pointed out by Appellants (Reply Br. 2—3), the Examiner’s
construction of “a compressed sensing arrangement of enabled sensor units”
in claim 1 is not reasonable, in light of Appellants’ Specification. According
to Appellants’ Specification, “compressed sensing” is a sampling technique
based on the Shannon-Nyquist sampling theorem, which essentially provides
that “a continuous signal cannot be reconstructed from its samples unless the
sampling rate is at least twice the signal’s maximum frequency.” Spec. 13.
However, “compressed sensing” relaxes this concept “either by recognizing
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Application 12/803,503
and exploiting structure in the sampled signals that reduces their information
content, or by allowing some information loss to occur during the sampling
process (i.e., ‘lossy’ sampling).” Spec. 1 3. According to the Specification,
“the compressed sensing technique combines a sampling operation with a
compression operation in a manner that enables sparse sampling,
advantageously reducing the volume of acquired and recorded sample data.”
Id. Thus, “compressed sensing arrangement,” as used in the present
application, is a sampling and data compression technique for reducing the
volume of acquired and recorded data. By contrast, greater sensor density,
as taught in the portion of Pavel cited by the Examiner, would increase the
volume of acquired and recorded data, and cannot be equated to
“compressed sensing” as described in Appellants’ Specification. The
Examiner does not proffer any evidence or technical explanation to show, by
a preponderance of evidence, that the data recording and control unit of
Nemeth, Woods, or Siems, even if modified in view of Pavel to provide a
greater density of sensors, would issue commands to provide an arrangement
of enabled sensors that supports “compressed sensing,” as required in
claim 1.
In light of the above, the Examiner’s determination that the
combination of Pavel with Nemeth, Woods, or Siems renders obvious the
subject matter of claim 1 is predicated on an improper construction of the
claim limitation “a data recording and control unit that. . . issues commands
to enable or disable selected sensor units to provide a compressed
sensing arrangement of enabled sensor units.” Consequently, the Examiner
fails to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the subject matter
of claim 1 would have been obvious. The Examiner’s improper claim
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Application 12/803,503
construction also fatally taints the Examiner’s conclusion that the subject
matter of dependent claims 2—14 and 25 would have been obvious.4
Accordingly, we do not sustain any of the Examiner’s rejections of
claims 1—14 and 25.
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—14 and 25 is reversed.
REVERSED
4 The Examiner does not rely on Boergen or M.P. in any manner that would
make up for the aforementioned error in the Examiner’s claim construction.
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