Ex Parte CarterDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 12, 201611674667 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 12, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 111674,667 02/13/2007 7590 02/16/2016 REVOLUTIONARY CONCEPTS, INC. 4822 Albemarle Road Suite 209 Charlotte, NC 28205-6696 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Ronald E. Carter 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 1043.011 4907 EXAMINER MURPHY, CHARLES C ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2455 MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE 02/16/2016 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte RONALD E. CARTER Appeal2013-010718 Application 11/67 4,667 Technology Center 2400 Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, JOHN F. HORVATH, and KEVIN C. TROCK, Administrative Patent Judges. HORVATH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Claims 1-3, 6, 8-11, 13, 14, 17, and21-28 standfinallyrejected. 1 App. Br. 3. Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner's rejections of claims 23 and 27. Id. at 3, 7. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We AFFIRM. 1 Both Appellant and Examiner indicate claim 18 stands finally rejected. See App. Br. 3; Final Act. 1. We, however, do not find a basis for the rejection of claim 18. See Final Act. 2-19. Accordingly, we review the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-3, 6, 8-11, 13, 14, 17, and21-28. Appeal2013-010718 Application 11/674,667 SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The invention is directed to method for providing multiple viewing opportunities of events at a venue by simultaneously communicating video from a plurality of cameras at the venue. Abstract. Claims 1, 22, and 23, reproduced below, are illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for providing multiple viewing opportunities of events at a venue, comprising (a) simultaneously communicating video taken from each of a plurality of video cameras, positioned at various locations at a venue, for receipt by each of a plurality of wireless mobile viewing devices at the venue, such that video taken from each video camera may be selectively received and viewed by each wireless mobile viewing device independently of receipt and viewing of video by any of the other wireless mobile viewing devices; and (b) effecting adjustment of one of the plurality of video cameras based on input from one or more of the wireless mobile viewing devices. 22. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of effecting adjustment of one of the plurality of video cameras in response to input from one or more of the wireless mobile viewing devices comprises effecting adjustment of one of the plurality of video cameras in response to input from a plurality of the wireless mobile viewing devices. 23. The method of claim 22, wherein said step of effecting adjustment of one of the plurality of video cameras in response to input from a plurality of the wireless mobile viewing devices comprises effecting adjustment based on an "averaging" of input from the plurality of wireless mobile viewing devices. 2 Appeal2013-010718 Application 11/674,667 Parker et al. Sato et al. Parry et al. Murphy REFERENCES us 5,963,250 US 6,525,761 B2 US 2004/0068743 Al US 2004/0078825 Al REJECTIONS Oct. 5, 1999 Feb.25,2003 Apr. 8, 2004 Apr. 22, 2004 Claims 1-3, 6, 8-11, 13, 14, 17, 21, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Parry and Murphy. Final Act. 2. Claims 22, 23, 26, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Parry, Murphy, and Parker. Final Act. 11. Claims 24 and 28 stand rejected 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Parry, Murphy, and Sato. Final Act. 17. ISSUES AND ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellant's arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellant's contentions, and adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellant's Appeal Brief. We highlight the following for emphasis. Claims 1-3, 6, 8-11, 13, 14, 17, 21, 22, 24-26, and 28 Appellant does not appeal the Examiner's rejections of these claims. App. Br. 3, 7. Accordingly, we summarily sustain the rejections. 3 Appeal2013-010718 Application 11/674,667 Claims 23 and 27 The Examiner finds Parker, in combination with Parry and Murphy, teaches or suggests effecting adjustment of one of a plurality of video cameras in response to input from a plurality of wireless mobile viewing devices by "averaging" the input from the plurality of wireless mobile viewing devices as recited in claim 23. Final Act. 13-14 (citing Parker 7:50----67, 8:1-15); Ans. 6-7 (citingParker7:15---65, 8:1-50). In particular, the Examiner finds Parker teaches this limitation by responding to multiple requests to share a camera's field of view by: [A]djusting the camera to include as [many] subjects as possible using the location data contained with a subject's request. This location data, received from a subject, is used to then select the view which includes the most subjects. Because a subject's location and associated field of view are linked, by adjusting a camera's field of view to include the majority of users, the camera system is also adjusting the view based on the most common location of inputs received from a plurality of subjects. Ans. 6. Appellant argues the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 23 because "the Examiner has at best made out a case that Parker discloses an averaging of two or more stored camera attribute values and/or an averaging of two disparate views, rather than 'an averaging of user inputs' as alleged." App. Br. 10. In particular, Appellant argues the Examiner erred because Parker's input "is simply input of 'my tum commands,"' which are not themselves averaged. Id. at 9. Appellant further argues adjusting camera attributes to view multiple subjects in response to multiple "my tum commands" is not the same as "averaging" the camera attributes needed to individually view 4 Appeal2013-010718 Application 11/674,667 each of the subjects individually because, e.g., "it would make no sense to average zoom attributes required to view each individual user in order to create a shared view of multiple individuals." Id. We are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments. Regarding Appellant's first argument, the Examiner cites Murphy for teaching controlling a remote camera via a control panel that provides camera controls such as up, down, left, right, pan, tilt, and zoom. See Final Act. 3, 12 (citing Murphy i-fi-173-74). The Examiner cites Parker for teaching controlling a remote camera based on inputs received from multiple users. Id. at 13-14; see also Ans. 6-7 (citing Parker 7: 15---65, 8: 1-50). Thus, the combination of Murphy and Parker teaches controlling a camera based on camera controls (Murphy) received from a plurality of users (Parker). "Non-obviousness cannot be established by attacking references individually where the rejection is based upon the teachings of a combination of references." In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Rather, "[t]he test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art." In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 591 (Fed. Cir. 1991). Accordingly, we are not persuaded by Appellant's argument that the Examiner erred because Parker's inputs are simply "my tum commands," which are not themselves averaged. Regarding Appellant's second argument, we are not persuaded that claim 23 requires a mathematical averaging of the inputs received from multiple users. Claims are construed during prosecution to have their broadest reasonable meaning in view of the specification. In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). "[T]he specification 'is always highly 5 Appeal2013-010718 Application 11/674,667 relevant to the claim construction analysis. Usually, it is dispositive; it is the single best guide to the meaning of a disputed term.'" Phillips v. A WH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1315 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en bane). The Specification discloses, when multiple users provide control inputs to a camera, providing an "'averaged' control based on the collective input." Spec. i-fi-152-53. The Specification does not define what it means to provide an "averaged" control, but simply states the "averaged" control is based on the input received from the multiple users. Significantly, the Specification does not define that the "averaged" control is the mathematical average of the multiple user inputs. We note that enclosing a term in scare quotes, such as the term "averaging" in claim 23, indicates the term is being used in a non- conventional or specialized sense. See Scare Quotes, Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/scare-quotes (last visited Jan. 28, 2016) (defining scare quotes as "a pair of quotation marks used around a term or phrase to indicate that the writer ... is using it in a specialized sense"). The only sense the Specification describes for effecting an "averaged" control is effecting a control based on the inputs received from multiple users. Accordingly, we construe the term "effecting adjustment based on an 'averaging' of input from the plurality of wireless mobile viewing devices," as recited in claim 23, to mean making an adjustment based on the inputs received from multiple wireless viewing devices. As discussed below, we agree with the Examiner that the combination of Parry, Murphy, and Parker teaches or suggests making such an adjustment. The Examiner finds, and we agree, that Parker teaches a camera control system having a shared view mode, whereby "each subject is 6 Appeal2013-010718 Application 11/674,667 represented by a personal locator that can issue a command which indicates a request to share the field of view." Parker 7:15-18; see Ans. 6. When a shared view command is issued, "the field of view variables for the specific individual that issued the share view command will be taken into account along with the current field of view variables and following the necessary share view calculations a shared field of view for both of the subjects will be created." Parker 7: 3 3--40 (emphasis added). The shared view calculations combine various camera parameters that are needed to view individual subjects (e.g., tilt, pan, zoom) in order to provide "a combined field of view that is representative of all the subject coordinates ... in order to get all of the respective users in the field of view." Id. at 11 :35-12:4. Thus, Murphy teaches controlling a camera by inputting various camera control parameters (e.g., pan, tilt, and zoom) (Murphy i-fi-173-74), and Parker teaches adjusting a camera's field of view by combining such parameters from multiple users to obtain a shared field of view. Parker 7:33--40, 11:35-12:4. Accordingly, we are not persuaded by Appellant's argument that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 23 because Parker's adjustment of camera attributes to view multiple subjects is not the same as "averaging" the camera attributes that are needed to individually view each of the subjects. For the reasons explained above, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Parry, Murphy, and Parker, and sustain the rejection. Appellant argues claim 27 is patentable over the combination of Parry, Murphy, and Parker for the same reasons as claim 23. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 27 for the same reasons as claim 23. 7 Appeal2013-010718 Application 11/674,667 DECISION TheExaminer'srejectionsofclaims 1-3, 6, 8-11, 13, 14, 17, and21, 22, 24--26, and 28 are summarily affirmed. The Examiner's rejections of claims 23 and 27 are affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED ACP 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation