Ex parte Gabor

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jul 23, 1998

08129425 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 23, 1998)

Application for patent filed September 29, 1993. 1
According to the appellant, this application is a continuation
of 07/687,306, filed April 18, 1991.
1
THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today (1)
was not written for publication in a law journal and (2) is
not binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 18
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
_____________
Ex parte CSABA P. GABOR

_____________
Appeal No. 96-2074
Application 08/129,4251
______________
ON BRIEF
_______________
Before THOMAS, KRASS and FLEMING, Administrative Patent
Judges.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.
ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING
Appeal No. 96-2074
Application 08/129,425
2
On June 18, 1998, appellant filed a request for
reconsideration of our decision rendered on May 12, 1998 in
which we affirmed-in-part the rejection set forth by the
examiner. In light of the most recent amendments to 37 CFR §
1.197 effective December 1997, we treat this request for
reconsideration as a request for rehearing.
Appellant requests rehearing only as to our affirmance of
independent claim 31 relative to the rejection under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 in light of Taaffe. The proper context of this
rejection was set forth in the paragraph bridging pages 2 and
3 of our original opinion, where we indicated that the
examiner was in substance relying upon Taaffe in light of
selected portions of appellant’s statement of the prior art
between pages 1 and 3 of the specification as filed.
Appellant does not contest our affirmance of the
examiner’s rejection of claims 20 and 33 in the request for
rehearing.
In the paragraph bridging pages 4 and 5 of our original
opinion we indicated first that the “font cartridge” language
of the preamble of claim 31 had no stated relevance to the
subject matter in the body of the claim on appeal as recited.
Appeal No. 96-2074
Application 08/129,425
3
This was restated in a somewhat different manner at the top of
page 5 of the opinion where we indicated that the body of
claim 31 on appeal did not recite in the memory means and data
processor means clauses that both are contained within or on
the “font cartridge” in the preamble. We see no need to
review and assess the case law relied upon by appellant in the
request for rehearing since, to simplify matters, we simply
assume for the sake of argument that appellant is correct that
we did error in some manner according to current case law that
the “font cartridge” language in the preamble gives life and
meaning to the claim because it defines the memory means and
the data processor of the body of the claim within a font
cartridge. The bottom line of appellant’s urging is that this
is the sole basis for us to therefore now reverse the
examiner’s rejection of claim 31 as being obvious over Taaffe
in lieu of appellant’s admitted prior art. We see no error in
our ultimate conclusion of the obviousness of claim 31 within
35 U.S.C. § 103.
The reasoning set forth at pages 7 and 8 of our original
opinion indicates why we concluded the proprietary of the
examiner’s view rejecting claim 31 within 35 U.S.C. § 103 in
Appeal No. 96-2074
Application 08/129,425
4
light of Taaffe’s teachings and appellant’s admitted prior
art. This assessment made specific reference to pertinent
portions of Taaffe’s background of the invention as well as
other locations in this reference. Most of our discussion
focused upon the obviousness of placing the compressed font
memory data within a memory cartridge in accordance with the
prior art approach recognized by appellant in the portions of
appellant’s specification the examiner referenced and relied
upon in the statement of the rejection.
Though not clearly expressed at this portion of our
opinion, it clearly would have been obvious to have
modularized, in a form of one of the prior art cartridges, the
data processor as well in the same cartridge, which itself was
well known in the art anyway according to appellant’s
assessment of the prior art and the teachings in Taaffe as
well. Taaffe’s device has an image archive/processor 17 in
Fig. 1a as well as an image-graphic processor 43 in Fig. 1b.
To increase modularity and ease of changing fonts or font
groups quickly, it would have been obvious to the artisan to
have placed the processor as well within the same cartridge
where the compressed font data was located in the form of a
Appeal No. 96-2074
Application 08/129,425
5
memory cartridge. Our reasoning at pages 7 and 8 of the
original opinion clearly relies upon the teachings of the need
to minimize processing time as specifically taught in Taaffe.
Thus, it would have been obvious to the artisan to have
further minimized processing time to decompress the compressed
font data by a data processor collocated with the memory
storing the compressed data, particularly to enable the font
data to be decompressed on a line by line basis as well as a
character by character basis more quickly for higher speed
printing operations.
We have granted appellant’s request for rehearing to the
extent that we have reconsidered our decision of May 12, 1998,
but we deny the request with respect to making any changes
therein.
No time for taking any subsequent action in connection
with this appeal may be extended under 37 CFR § 1.136(a).
DENIED
Appeal No. 96-2074
Application 08/129,425
6
)
JAMES D. THOMAS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
ERROL A. KRASS )
Administrative Patent Judge ) APPEALS AND
)
) INTERFERENCES
)
MICHAEL R. FLEMING )
Administrative Patent Judge )

SEED and BERRY
Att: Robert Iannucci
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Seattle, WA 98104-7092