Ex Parte Elseth et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 28, 2017

13657813 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 28, 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
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/657,813 10/22/2012 Ian J. Elseth APLE.P0437 4111
759062224
ADELI LLP
11859 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 408
LOS ANGELES, CA 90025
05/02/2017 EXAMINER
MCINTOSH, ANDREW T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2176
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/02/2017 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.
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte IAN J. ELSETH, CHRISTOPHER E. RUDOLPH,
DONALD R. BEAVER, ALLISON M. STYER, and
MARTIN J. MURRETT
Appeal 2017-000456
Application 13/657,813
Technology Center 2100
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and
JASON M. REPKO, Administrative Patent Judges.
REPKO, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1—10 and 12—26. App. Br. I.1 Claim 11 has been
canceled. Reply Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.
1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Final Rejection (“Final Act.”)
mailed August 24, 2015, (2) the Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) filed March 28,
2016, (3) the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) mailed August 5, 2016, and (4)
the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed October 5, 2016.
Appeal 2017-000456
Application 13/657,813
THE INVENTION
Appellants’ invention aligns mathematical objects in structured
electronic documents. See Spec. 2. For example, mathematical objects can
be expressions, equations, among other things. Id. at 7. One embodiment
moves the mathematical objects so that a particular symbol is in the center of
the page. Id. at 2.
Claim 1 is reproduced below with our emphasis:
1. A method of authoring a document, the method comprising:
identifying a plurality of mathematical objects in the
document;
constructing a search tree for each identified mathematical
object by parsing the mathematical object, wherein each leaf
node of the search tree corresponds to a symbol in the
corresponding mathematical object;
identifying a relational operator in each mathematical
object from the corresponding search tree for aligning the
plurality of mathematical objects in the document; and
aligning each mathematical object to a particular position
in the document based on the identified relational operator in the
mathematical object, wherein at least two of the relational
operators used to align the plurality of mathematical objects
define two different relational operations.
THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner relies on the following as evidence:
Agrawal et al.
Xu et al.
US 2002/0129055 Al Sept. 12, 2002
US 2006/0062468 Al Mar. 23, 2006
US 2007/0016859 Al Jan. 18, 2007
US 2011/0244434 Al Oct. 6, 2011
US 2012/0042242 Al Feb. 16, 2012
US 2013/0205200 Al Aug. 8, 2013
Burago et al.
Livne et al.
Garland et al.
Lazarevic et al
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Application 13/657,813
P.A. Chou, Recognition of Equations Using a Two-Dimensional Stochastic
Context-Free Grammar, 1199 Visual Communications and Image
Processing IV 852 (1989) (“Chou”).
Claims 1, 2, 6, 7, 12—23, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Burago, Garland, and Lazarevic. Ans. 2—12.
Claims 3 and 4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Burago, Garland, Lazarevic, and Livne. Ans. 12—14.
Claims 5, 10, and 242 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Burago, Garland, Lazarevic, and Chou. Ans. 14—15, 17.
Claims 8 and 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Burago, Garland, Lazarevic, and Xu. Ans. 15—16.
Claim 26 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Burago, Garland, Lazarevic, and Agrawal. Ans. 18.
THE REJECTION OVER BURAGO, GARLAND, AND LAZAREVIC
I
Claim 1 recites, in part, “wherein at least two of the relational
operators used to align the plurality of mathematical objects define two
different relational operations.”
2 The Examiner omits Garland and Lazarevic from the headings of the
rejections for claims 24 and 26. See Ans. 17—18. Because the Examiner
lists the references in the substantive portion of claim 24’s rejection, we
deem the omission of these references in the heading a harmless
typographical error. See id. at 17. So, for the purpose of this appeal, we
treat claim 24 as rejected over the Burago, Garland, Lazarevic, and Chou,
and claim 26 as rejected over Burago, Garland, Lazarevic, and Agrawal.
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Application 13/657,813
Appellants argue that Lazarevic does not teach or suggest aligning, as
recited. App. Br. 9; Reply Br. 6. The Examiner, however, relies on Burago,
not Lazarevic, to teach alignment in the proposed combination. See Ans. 3—
4.
In particular, the Examiner finds that Burago aligns mathematical
objects based on the object’s relational operator, as recited. Id. (citing
Burago Tflf 23, 37, 43, Fig. 4C). We agree. In the cited embodiment, Burago
identifies an equals sign (i.e., a relational operator) as an anchor point for
aligning a document’s mathematical expressions. Burago 137. Figure 4C,
shown below, illustrates an example alignment.
426
f ■434
Burago’s Figure 4C shows expressions 428 and 430 aligned between
margins 432 and 434. Id. 143. Burago’s alignment is based on alignment
points 437 and 439. Id. These identified alignment points are both equals
signs. See id. That is, the relational operations for both expressions are the
same. See id. Based on this disclosure, the Examiner finds that, unlike
claim 1, Burago does not identify two relational operations that are different.
Ans. 3—A.
Although the Examiner finds that Burago does not identify at least
two different relational operations, the Examiner cites Lazarevic for this
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feature. Id. at 4—5. Therefore, the Examiner does not cite Lazarevic alone to
address the recited aligning, as Appellants argue. See App. Br. 9
(“Lazarevic neither in the cited portions nor anywhere else discloses or
suggests aligning . . . .”); see also Reply Br. 6. Because Appellants’
arguments do not address, squarely, the Examiner’s proposed combination,
these arguments (App. Br. 9; Reply Br. 6) are unpersuasive.
II
Nevertheless, the Examiner does state that “Lazarevic teaches at least
two different relational operators used to adjust the layout.” Ans. 5
(emphasis added). Although the term “adjust” does not appear in claim 1,
Appellants disagree with the Examiner’s rationale in this regard. App. Br. 9;
Reply Br. 5. In particular, Appellants argue that Lazarevic’s formula-
detection engine does not “adjust” the layout using at least two different
relational operators. App. Br. 9; Reply Br. 5. According to Appellants,
Lazarevic does not define or modify any formulas. Reply Br. 5. In
Appellants’ view, Lazarevic only identifies complete formulas from partial
formulas, without moving or aligning those partial formulas. App. Br. 9;
Reply Br. 5.
To the extent that Appellants regard the Examiner’s rejection deficient
based on Lazarevic’s lack of adjusting (App. Br. 9; Reply Br. 5), we
disagree.
In using the term “adjust,” the Examiner is referring to Lazarevic’s
conversion of a “fixed format” document into a “flow format” document.
See Ans. 5 (citing Lazarevic 14). This conversion involves transforming the
document’s layout. Lazarevic 12, cited in Ans. 5. To perform that
conversion, Lazarevic eliminates overlap between formula areas and normal
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text. See, e.g., Lazarevic 134. Lazarevic’s process orders the formulas
vertically and merges formula areas that overlap horizontally. Id. 124. The
result is a formula reconstructed as a “flowable element.” Id. On this
record, the Examiner’s finding that Lazarevic adjusts a layout (Ans. 5) is
reasonable. Therefore, Appellants’ argument that the Examiner erred
because Lazarevic does not “adjust the layout” (App. Br. 8—9; Reply Br. 5)
is unpersuasive.
Notably, Appellants do not dispute that Lazarevic identifies
mathematical formulas. See App. Br. 9 (citing Lazarevic 12). Indeed,
Lazarevic first identifies formula seeds, such as mathematical operators.
Lazarevic 129; see also id. 130 (describing character sets in the ranges of
#2200-#22LL). Lazarevic’s formula-detection engine then expands a
boundary around the seeds to enclose a complete formula within a block of
text. Id. 131; accord App. Br. 9. furthermore, Appellants state that it was
known “that formulas can have multiple operators.” Reply Br. 6. In the
rejection, the Examiner proposes using Lazarevic’s detection of multiple
operators and restructured formulas to obtain the cited benefits of
Lazarevic’s flow-format in Burago. Ans. 5 (citing Lazarevic 2, 6), 20-
21. On this record, the Examiner combines prior art elements according to
known methods to yield predictable results, which is an obvious
combination. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of (1) independent
claim 1, (2) independent claims 13 and 20, which are not argued separately
with particularity, and (3) dependent claims 2, 6, 7, 12, 14, 16—19, 21—23,
and 25, which are also not argued separately with particularity.
See App. Br. 9-10; Reply Br. 4
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THE REJECTION OVER BURAGO, GARLAND, LAZAREVIC, AND
CHOU3
Claims 5, 10, and 24
Claim 5 recites, in part, that the recited identifying “comprises
excluding relational operators that are visually nested.” Claim 24 recites a
similar limitation. Claim 10 also recites excluding operators, except that the
recited operators are those “within a subscript or a superscript.”
The Examiner finds that Burago, Garland, and Lazarevic do not
exclude relational operators that are visual nested (as in claims 5 and 24) or
within a subscript or a superscript (as in claim 10). Ans. 14—15, 17. In
concluding that claims 5,10, and 24 would have been obvious, the Examiner
cites Chou for this teaching. Id. (citing Chou 858). According to the
Examiner, Chou manipulates visually nested operators as a whole because
nested operators are difficult to identify. Ans. 14—15, 17
Appellants argue that, although Chou does not horizontally subdivide
some expressions, the Examiner has not shown that Chou excludes these
expressions from identification. App. Br. 10—11.
Appellants’ arguments are persuasive.
Specifically, Chou uses a grammar to recognize equations. Chou 858,
cited in Ans. 14—15, 17. In this grammar, some symbols represent an
expression horizontally followed by another expression—i.e., the symbol
3 Although the Examiner also rejects claim 15 under Burago, Garland, and
Lazarevic (Ans. 8), Appellants argue claim 15 with claims 5 and 24 (see
App. Br. 10-11; Reply Br. 6—7). Accordingly, we discuss claim 15 in this
section.
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Application 13/657,813
can be “horizontally subdivided.” Chou 858. Other symbols, like “big
operator” Ym=i ■> cannot be treated this way. Id.
The Examiner, however, has not shown that Chou teaches or suggests
excluding the big operator’s equals sign from identification. Ans. 14—15.
Rather, in the cited passage, Chou maps the big operator, and other similar
“non-terminal characters,” to rectangular pixel arrays. Chou 858. Chou
then parses these arrays down to the pixel level. Id. Ultimately, Chou
decomposes all components, including “n=l” in the big operator. Id. at 852,
cited in Ans. 21. So, the Examiner’s finding that the references teach or
suggest excluding relational operators that are visually nested, as in claims 5
and 24 (Ans. 14, 17), or those that are subscripted or superscripted, as in
claim 10 (Ans. 15), is unsupported on this record (Chou 852, 858).
Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 5, 10,
and 24.
Claim 15
Claim 15 recites, in part, that the identifying comprises “a set of
instructions for identifying an earliest relational operator encountered during
said traversing that is not visually nested.'” (emphasis added). Claim 15 does
not recite excluding visually nested operators as recited in claims 5, 10, and
24.
Notably, the Examiner does not reject claim 15 under Chou. Ans. 8.
Rather, claim 15 stands rejected under Burago, Garland, and Lazarevic. See
id. The Examiner finds that (1) Burago’s system traverses expressions and
(2) Burago’s figures show that the first expression traversed is not visually
nested. Id.
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To these findings, Appellants do not provide a substantive rebuttal.
See App. Br. 11; Reply Br. 6—7. Nor do Appellants explain, with
particularity, why the arguments against Chou apply to Burago. See
App. Br. 11; Reply Br. 6—7. Rather, Appellants argue that claim 15 is
patentable for the same reasons discussed for claim 5 and independent claim
13. App. Br. 11; see also App. Br. 10 (discussing dependent claims
generally). Because (1) claim 15 is different from claim 5 and (2) the
arguments (id. at 11—10) do not address the Examiner’s reliance on Burago’s
teachings, as applied to claim 15’s limitations (see Ans. 14), Appellants’
arguments are unpersuasive.
Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 15.
THE REJECTION OVER BURAGO, GARLAND, LAZAREVIC, AND
XU
Claim 8 recites, in part, that the recited identifying “further comprises
excluding a relational operator that is within a radical.” Claim 9 also recites
excluding operators, except that the recited operators are those “within a
fraction.”
The Examiner finds that Burago, Garland, and Lazarevic do not
exclude relational operators that are within a radical (as in claim 8) or within
a fraction (as in claim 9). Ans. 15—16, 22—23. In concluding that claims 8
and 9 would have been obvious, the Examiner cites Xu for this teaching. Id.
According to the Examiner, Xu describes that (1) symbols within a radical
are less related to the overall expression and (2) symbols within a fraction
“lose direction relationships.” Id. at 22 (citing Xu Fig. 40,1271). In the
Examiner’s view, this lack of relatedness in Xu suggests excluding symbols
within the radical and fractional component. Ans. 22—21.
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Appellants argue that Xu’s Abstract expressly discloses identifying
subscripts and superscripts, contrary to the Examiner’s findings.
App. Br. 11—12; Reply Br. 8. Appellants further contend that, to properly
group symbols, Xu identifies, not excludes, subordinate symbols like
fractions and subscripts. App. Br. 11—12; Reply Br. 7—9.
Appellants’ arguments are persuasive. Although Xu groups symbols
based on relatedness (see Xu 1234—36), the Examiner has not shown that
unrelated, or less related, symbols are excluded from identification. See
Ans. 15—16, 22—23. Rather, Xu expressly states that the system includes
“subscript/superscript analysis” and the system “is designed to identify
subscript and superscript elements.” Xu Abstract (emphasis added), cited in
Reply Br. 8. Furthermore, Xu identifies whether a fraction line separates the
symbols. See Xu 1236; accord App. Br. 12. Although Xu may not group
symbols within fractions and radicals with other, less related symbols
(Xu 1236, Abstract), the Examiner has not shown that it would have been
obvious to exclude those symbols from identification. See Ans. 15—16.
On this record, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claim 8
and 9.
THE REMAINING OBVIOUSNESS REJECTIONS
Claims 3 and 4 depend from claim 2 and indirectly depend from claim
1. Claim 26 depends from claim 20. In arguing against the rejections for
claims 3, 4, and 26, Appellants rely on the arguments presented for their
respective independent claims. See App. Br. 10; Reply Br. 4. For the
reasons discussed in connection with claims 1 and 20, we also sustain the
rejections of claims 3, 4, and 26.
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DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—4, 6, 7, 12—23, 25,
and 26.
We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 5, 8—10, and 24.
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-IN-PART
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