Ex Parte Gotoh

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 31, 2016

12547989 (P.T.A.B. May. 31, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/547,989 08/26/2009
127226 7590 06/03/2016
Birch, Stewart, Kolasch & Birch, LLP
P.O. Box 747
Falls Church, VA 22040-0747
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
MakioGOTOH
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.
l 248- l ll 2PUS 1 6261
EXAMINER
CHEN,XUEMEIG
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2668
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/03/2016 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):
mailroom@bskb.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MAKIO GOTOH
Appeal2014-008183
Application 12/547,989
Technology Center 2600
Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, THU A. DANG, and SCOTT B. HOWARD,
Administrative Patent Judges.
NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the rejection
of claims 1 through 7, 9, 11, and 13 through 16. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
INVENTION
This invention is directed to an image processing apparatus including
a segmentation process section for performing a segmentation process on
image data and a spatial filer section for performing a spatial filter process
on the image data. The spatial filter section performs, on image data for
use in printing or facsimile transmission, a spatial filer process that varies
according to a result of the segmentation process, and performs, on image
Appeal2014-008183
Application 12/547,989
data for use in a preview display, a spatial filter process irrelevant to the
result of the segmentation process. See Abstract of Appellant's
Specification. Claim 1 is representative of the invention and reproduced
below.
1. An image processing apparatus comprising:
a segmentation process section which judges, for each
pixel constituting image data including a plurality of image
areas or for each block of pixels in the image data, to which
image area said each pixel or said each block belongs; and
an image processing section which performs at least a
predetermined image processing on the image data, wherein
when the image data are data for use in printing or
transmission, the image processing section selecting a mode
for changing contents of the predetermined image processing
to be executed on said each pixel or said each block by
referring to type of the image area to which said each pixel or
said each block has been judged to belong by the segmentation
process section,
\~1hen the image data are data for use in a previe\~1
display, the image processing section selecting a mode for
performing (i) a downsampling process on the image data and
(ii) the predetermined image processing by ignoring the type of
the image area to which said each pixel or said each block has
been judged to belong by the segmentation process section, so
that the predetermined image processing is performed
irrelevant to the type of image area.
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Appeal2014-008183
Application 12/547,989
REJECTIONS AT ISSUE
The Examiner has rejected claims 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 11, and 13 through 16
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Gotoh et al. (US 8,305,645
B2) and Yamamoto JP 09-135316. Ans. 3. 1
The Examiner has rejected claim 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Gotoh, Yamamoto and Ogawa (US 7 ,536,055 B2). Ans.
3.
The Examiner has rejected claims 4 and 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Gotoh, Yamamoto and Ikeda (JP 2008-028760). Ans. 3-
4.
ISSUES
Appellant presents several arguments, on pages 8 through 13 of the
Appeal Brief and pages 2 through 8 of the Reply Brief, directed to the
Examiner's rejection of independent claims 1 and 7. These arguments
present us with the following issue: Did the Examiner err in finding the
combination of Gotoh and Yamamoto teaches or suggests that, when the
image data is used in a preview display, image processing by ignoring the
type of the image area to which the pixel block has been judged to belong to
by the segmentation process as recited in representative claim 1?
1 Throughout this Decision, we refer to the Appeal Brief dated May 1, 2014
(App. Br.), the Reply Brief dated July 18, 2014 (Reply Br.), and the
Examiner's Answer mailed May 22, 2014 (Ans.).
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Application 12/547,989
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellant's arguments in the Appeal Brief and the
Reply Brief, the Examiner's rejections, and the Examiner's response to
Appellant's arguments. Appellant's arguments have not persuaded us of
error in the Examiner's rejection of claims 1 through 7, 9, 11, and 13
through 16.
Appellant's arguments in the Appeal Brief assert that Yamamoto
takes document type into consideration during preview process and that for
some document types the smoothing filtering is not performed. App. Br. 9.
As such Appellant contends Yamamoto does not teach in a preview display,
image processing by ignoring the type of the image area to which the pixel
block has been judged to belong to by the segmentation process as recited
representative claim 1. App. Br. 10.
The Examiner provides a comprehensive response to Appellant's
arguments on pages 5 through 11 of the Answer. The Examiner finds that
Gotoh teaches all of the limitations of the claim, except the preview.
Answer 5. Further, the Examiner identifies that the claims recite filtering in
accordance with area type which is different from document type (which
Appellant analogized to area type in App. Br.) Ans. 5---6. The Examiner
finds that Yamamoto teaches in a preview processing, the same filter is used
on the whole document, and thus the same filter is used throughout the
whole document irrelevant to the document type. Ans. 6.
We have reviewed the Examiner's findings and the supporting
documents and we concur with the Examiner. Appellant's arguments are
not persuasive as they focus only on Yamamoto' s document type and do not
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Appeal2014-008183
Application 12/547,989
address the combination of Gotoh and Yamamoto as relied upon by the
Examiner.
Appellant's arguments in the Reply Brief, have similarly not
persuaded us of error in the Examiner's rejection. Appellant's arguments in
the Reply Brief that Yamamoto does qualify as prior art as it does not
discuss segmentation of the image, is not persuasive of error. Reply Br. 2-4.
The Examiner relies upon Gotoh to teach and suggest segmentation, further
the Appellant has not explained what legal principal excludes Yamamoto
from being prior art as it was published more than one year from Appellant's
filing. Further, Appellant's arguments directed to Yamamoto not teaching
performing smoothing for some document types, on pages 4 through 9 of the
Reply Brief is similarly not persuasive.
As discussed above, the Examiner has relied upon Gotoh to teach and
suggest segmenting the document and filtering the segmented section. The
Examiner has shown and we agree that Yamamoto teaches and suggests
using the smoothing filter for the entire document when creating a preview.
(See Yamamoto step 15 of smoothing, which is performed prior to the
preview steps 200).
Accordingly, Appellant's arguments have not persuaded us of error in
the Examiner's rejection of claim 1, and we sustain the Examiner's rejection
of claim 1 and depend claims 2 through 6, 9, 11 and 13 which are grouped
with claim 1.
Appellant's statements regarding claims 7, 9 and 14 merely recite
limitations in the claims and assert that the rejection is in error for the same
reasons as claim 1. App. Br. 13. Such statements are not separate
arguments. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(iv) ("A statement which merely points
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Appeal2014-008183
Application 12/547,989
out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for separate
patentability of the claim."); see also In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed.
Cir. 2011) ("[W]e hold that the Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to
require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation
of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements
were not found in the prior art."). Thus, we are not presented with additional
issues with respect to claims 7, 14, 15, and 16 and we sustain the Examiner's
rejection of these claims for the same reasons as claim 1.
DECISION
We sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 1 through 7, 9, 11, and
13 through 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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
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