Ex Parte Kim et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Oct 20, 2009

10305164 (B.P.A.I. Oct. 20, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte DO-KYOON KIM, SEOK-YOON JUNG,
EUEE-SEON JANG, SANG-OAK WOO, SHIN-JIN LEE,
MAHN-JIN HAN, and GYEONG-JA JANG
____________

Appeal 2009-004772
Application 10/305,164
Technology Center 2600
____________

Decided: October 20, 2009
____________

Before KENNETH W. HAIRSTON, MARC S. HOFF,
and THOMAS S. HAHN, Administrative Patent Judges.
HAIRSTON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a final rejection of
claims 1 to 14, 16 to 42, 44 to 46, 48, 49, 51 to 54, 56 to 62, 70, 74, 75, 79,
and 80. Claims 63 to 69 are allowable, and claims 15, 43, 47, 71 to 73, and
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76 to 78 are objected to for depending from rejected base claims, but would
be allowable if rewritten in independent form to include all of limitations of
the base claim and any intervening claims. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We will reverse the obviousness rejections of claims 1 to 14, 16 to 42,
44 to 46, 48, 49, 51 to 54, 56 to 62, 70, 74, 75, 79, and 80.
Appellants have invented an apparatus and a method for encoding and
decoding a position interpolator that includes key data that indicates the
locations of keyframes on a temporal axis, and key value data that indicates
the location of an object. The key data and key value data are generated by
extracting from a first animation path that constitutes the position
interpolator a minimum number of break points that can bring about an error
of no greater than a predetermined allowable error limit between the first
animation path and a second animation path generated by the extracted break
points. The extracted break points are used to generate key data and key
value data for the second animation path. Thereafter, a key data encoder
encodes the key data, and a key value data encoder encodes the key value
data (Figs. 1 to 4; Spec. 1 to 4, 13, 15 to 20; Abstract).
Claim 1 is illustrative of the claims on appeal, and it reads as follows:
1. An apparatus for encoding a position interpolator, which includes
key data indicating the locations of keyframes on a temporal axis and key
value data including the location of an object, the apparatus comprising:
a break point extractor which extracts, from a first animation path
constituted by a position interpolator input thereinto, a minimum number of
break points that can bring about an error of no greater than a predetermined
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allowable error limit between the first animation path and a second
animation path to be generated by the extracted break points and outputs key
data and key value data corresponding to the second animation path;
a key data encoder which encodes key data input from the break point
extractor; and
a key value data encoder which encodes key value data input from the
break point extractor.
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Berend US 5,692,117 Nov. 25, 1997
Bell, The Virtual Reality Modeling Language Specification, Version 2.0,
Aug. 4, 1996.

Ramamoorthi, Dynamic Splines with Constraints for Animation, California
Institute of Technology Technical Report 00000158, pp. 1 to 13, 1997.

Stewart, Calculus Concepts and Contexts, Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.,
pp. 416, 417, 1998.

Walsh, Core Web3D, Prentice Hall PTR, pp. 17-1 to 19-12, Sept. 14, 2000.

The Examiner rejected claims 49, 52, and 53 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
based upon the teachings of Ramamoorthi.
The Examiner rejected claim 51 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon
the teachings of Ramamoorthi and Stewart.
The Examiner rejected claims 54, 57, 58, 60, and 61 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) based upon the teachings of Ramamoorthi and Berend.
The Examiner rejected claims 56, 59, and 62 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
based upon the teachings of Ramamoorthi, Berend, and Stewart.
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The Examiner rejected claims 17, 18, 34, 35, 40, and 80 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Walsh.
The Examiner rejected claims 19 to 22, 41, 42, 44 to 46, 48, 70, 74,
75, and 79 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Walsh and
Bell.
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 16, 23, and 36 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) based upon the teachings of Walsh and Ramamoorthi.
The Examiner rejected claims 2 to 5, 24 to 27, and 37 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) based upon the teachings of Walsh, Ramamoorthi, and Berend.
The Examiner rejected claims 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 28, 29, and 38 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Walsh, Ramamoorthi, and Bell.
The Examiner rejected claims 7, 10, 13, 14, 30 to 33, and 39 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Walsh, Ramamoorthi, Bell, and
Berend.
Appellants argue inter alia (App. Br. 12 to 24) that the Examiner has
relied on prior art in the obviousness rejections that neither meets nor
addresses at least one limitation or method step in each of the independent
claims on appeal. Appellants argue (Reply Br. 1 and 2) that the Examiner
“has not established that the applied art meets all of the claim recitations, but
instead either misinterprets the prior art or suggests that the applied art
discloses ‘similar’ concepts.”

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ISSUE
Have Appellants shown that the Examiner erred by not coming to
grips with or addressing all of the limitations in each of the claims on
appeal?
FINDINGS OF FACT (FF)
1. In Figure 1 of Ramamoorthi, splines are constructed so that
animation paths pass through user-defined, open-circle keyframes. The
smaller circle variable keyframes are created by the system to minimize an
objective function affecting the behavior between the keyframes (p. 1). The
primary application of Ramamoorthi’s technique is interpolation of
keyframes (p. 2). The algorithm used by Ramamoorthi creates an optimal
set of variable frames between the keyframes to thereby arrive at an optimal
animation path (p. 3).
2. Figure 2 of Stewart illustrates an application of the Trapezoidal
Rule (p. 417).
3. Figure 1a of Berend illustrates a freehand curve, and Figure 1b
illustrates the Figure 1a curve with straight-line segments.
4. In Walsh, chapter 17 is directed to MPEG-4 Binary Format for
Scenes (BIFS), chapter 18 is directed to Animating Scenes with BIFS-
ANIM, and chapter 19 is directed to Customizing VRML for BIFS1.
5. The VRML publication by Bell describes interpolator nodes
designed for linear keyframed animation.

1 Appellants state in the Background of the Invention (Spec. 1, 2) that
MPEG-4 BIFS and VRML support keyframe based 3D animation using an
interpolator (e.g., a position interpolator) node.
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PRINCIPLES OF LAW
The Examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case
of obviousness, and the Appellants have the burden of presenting a rebuttal
to the prima facie case. In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
The Examiner’s articulated reasoning for combining the teachings of
the references must support a legal conclusion of obviousness. KSR Int’l
Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007).

ANALYSIS
Turning first to the obviousness rejection of claims 49, 52, and 53, we
agree with Appellants’ argument (App. Br. 12) that an error is not calculated
between the two animation paths identified in Figure 1 of Ramamoorthi as
the open-circle keyframes and the smaller circle variable keyframes (FF 1).
If the error calculation of claimed step (c) is not performed, then it follows
that step (d) is not performed by Ramamoorthi. Since Ramamoorthi neither
teaches nor would have suggested all of the steps of claims 49, 52, and 53,
the obviousness rejection of these claims is reversed.
The obviousness rejection of claim 51 is reversed because the
application of the Trapezoidal Rule taught by Stewart (FF 2) fails to cure the
noted error calculation shortcoming in the teachings of Ramamoorthi.
The obviousness rejection of claims 54, 57, 58, 60, and 61 is reversed
because neither the freehand curve in Figure 1a of Berend nor the curve
formed by straight-line segments in Figure 1b of Berend (FF 3) serves to
cure the noted error calculation shortcoming in the teachings of
Ramamoorthi.
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For all of the reasons expressed supra, the obviousness rejection of
claims 56, 59, and 62 based upon the teachings of Ramamoorthi, Berend,
and Stewart is reversed.
Turning to the obviousness rejection of claims 17, 18, 34, 35, and 40,
we agree with the Appellants’ argument (App. Br. 18) that Walsh (FF 4)
neither teaches nor would have suggested a resampler that samples an
animation path constituted by key data and key value data into a
predetermined number of positions having an interval of a predetermined
amount of time and outputs a position interpolator including resampled key
data and resampled value data. With respect to claim 80, we agree with
Appellants’ argument (App. Br. 19) that Walsh neither teaches nor would
have suggested “a key header comprising a preserved key bit and keyframe
number information numberOfkey indicating a total number of keyframes.”
Thus, the obviousness rejection of claims 17, 18, 34, 35, 40, and 80 is
reversed.
The obviousness rejection of claims 19 to 22, 41, 42, 44 to 46, and 48
is reversed because the BIFS and VRML standards described by Walsh (FF
4), and the interpolator nodes designed for linear keyframed animation
teachings in the VRML publication by Bell (FF 5) neither teach nor would
have suggested a position interpolator synthesizer which generates a position
interpolator by synthesizing decoded key value data and key value data
linearly interpolated using the decoded key value data.
The obviousness rejection of claims 70, 74, 75, and 79 is reversed
because we agree with Appellants’ arguments (App. Br. 21 and 22) that the
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applied references neither teach nor would have suggested any of the
detailed method steps set forth in these claims.

The obviousness rejection of claims 1, 16, 23, and 36 is reversed
because we agree with Appellants’ argument (App. Br. 23) that the applied
references to Walsh and Ramamoorthi neither teach nor would have
suggested extracting from a first animation path constituted by a position
interpolator a minimum number of break points that can bring about an error
of no greater than a predetermined allowable error limit between the first
animation path and a second animation path to be generated by the extracted
break points.
The obviousness rejections of claims 2 to 14, 24 to 33, and 37 to 39
are reversed because the teachings of Berend and Bell fail to cure the noted
shortcoming in the teachings of Walsh and Ramamoorthi.
In summary, the obviousness rejections of all of the claims on appeal
are reversed because Appellants have successfully rebutted the Examiner’s
articulated reasoning for reaching a conclusion of obviousness. See Oetiker,
977 F.2d at 1445; KSR Int’l, 550 U.S. at 418.

CONCLUSION OF LAW
Appellants have demonstrated that the Examiner erred by not coming
to grips with all of the limitations in each of the claims on appeal.

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ORDER
The decision of the Examiner rejecting claims 1 to 14, 16 to 42, 44 to
46, 48, 49, 51 to 54, 56 to 62, 70, 74, 75, 79, and 80 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) is reversed.

REVERSED

KIS

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