Ex Parte Kranitzky et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 24, 2017

13979181 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 24, 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
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/979,181 07/11/2013 Walter Kranitzky 813252 9049
95683 7590 10/26/2017
Leydig, Voit & Mayer, Ltd. (Frankfurt office)
Two Prudential Plaza, Suite 4900
180 North Stetson Avenue
Chicago, IL 60601-6731
EXAMINER
BRANIFF, CHRISTOPHER
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2484
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/26/2017 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.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
chgpatent @ ley dig. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte WALTER KRANITZKY, MARTIN SCHILCHER,
and GERHARD MUEHLBAUER
Appeal 2017-001599
Application 13/979,181
Technology Center 2400
Before ERIC B. CHEN, AMBER L. HAGY, and MICHAEL M. BARRY,
Administrative Patent Judges.
HAGY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 12—26, which are all of the pending claims.2 We
have jurisdiction over these claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Dr. Johannes Heidenhain
GmbH. (App. Br. 1.)
2 Claims 1—11 have been canceled. (App. Br. 13 (Claims App’x).)
Appeal 2017-001599
Application 13/979,181
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
According to Appellants:
The present invention relates to a device and a method for
detecting the position of an object in a machine tool. Such
methods are required, for example, for determining the exact
position of a workpiece within the machine tool after the
workpiece has been mounted. Knowing this position is decisive
for accurate processing of the workpiece and, for example, also
for collision control. For this purpose, it is necessary to
determine not only the position of workpiece, but also the
positions of the clamping devices that are used for mounting the
workpiece.
(Spec. 12.)
Exemplary Claim
Claims 12 and 21 are independent. Claim 21, reproduced below with
the disputed limitation italicized, is exemplary of the claimed subject matter:
Claim 21: A method for detecting the position of an object in a
machine tool, the method comprising:
capturing, using a camera, an image of the object and an
object carrier to which the object is connected and whose
position within the machine tool is known;
determining a position of the object relative to the camera
based on geometric features of the object obtained from the
image;
determining a position of the object carrier relative to the
camera based on geometric features of the object carrier obtained
from the image; and
determining a position of the object relative to the object
carrier from the determined positions of the object and the object
carrier relative to the camera.
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Application 13/979,181
References
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Hong US 5,208,763 May 4, 1993
Ban US 7,280,687 B2 Oct. 9,2007
Tian US 2009/0015668 A1 Jan. 15,2009
V. Lippiello, B. Siciliano, and L. Villani, “Position-Based Visual
Servoing in Industrial Multirobot Cells Using a Hybrid Camera
Configuration,” IEEE Trans. Robot., vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 73—86, Feb.
2007 (hereafter “Lippiello”).
Rejections
Claims 21 and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being
anticipated by Tian. (Final Act. 3—5.)
Claims 12—14, 17, 19, 22, and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Tian. (Final Act. 6—11.)
Claims 15 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Tian and Hong. (Final Act. 11—12.)
Claims 16, 20, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Tian and Ban. (Final Act. 12—14.)
Claim 24 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Tian and Lippiello. (Final Act. 14—15.)
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Appeal 2017-001599
Application 13/979,181
ISSUE
Whether the Examiner erred in finding Tian discloses “determining a
position of the object relative to the object carrier from the determined
positions of the object and the object carrier relative to the camera” as
recited in independent claim 21 and commensurately recited in independent
claim 12.
ANALYSIS
The Examiner rejects claims 12 and 25 as anticipated by Tian. (Final
Act. 3—5.) Appellants argue the Examiner’s findings are in error because
Tian does not disclose the step of determining a relative position
of either the object or the object carrier relative to the camera, as
required by claim 21. Accordingly, Tian also does not disclose
determining a position of the object relative to the object carrier
from such relative positions, as also required by claim 21.
Rather, Tian merely describes producing a model of an entire
machine tool with the workpiece and the camera both being
virtually set in the model. See Tian, paragraph [0092], Then,
Tian takes an image of the machine tool to determine whether
the virtual model matches the image or not by comparing
geometrical features of the image and an image of the model.
(App. Br. 5.)
We are persuaded by Appellants’ argument. As Appellants further
note, and we agree:
Tian does not disclose determining any relative positions at all,
Tian certainly does not disclose using one set of relative positions
to determine another set of relative positions. Rather, the whole
point of creating the model in Tian is to position and orient the
objects in the virtual space to match an expected scenario. Since
the positions and orientations of all objects would therefore
already be theoretically known in the virtual space, there would
be no reason to determine a relative position of objects to each
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Appeal 2017-001599
Application 13/979,181
other using the relative positions of those objects relative to
another object, especially since the specific positions do not need
to be known to perform the image comparison in Tian, as
discussed above. In other words, if the images match in Tian,
the positions and orientations of the objects can be taken directly
from the model and, if not, Tian does not disclose how to
determine the actual position of the objects.
(Id. at 6.)
In response to Appellants’ arguments, the Examiner finds
Tian discloses methods of associating the imaged workpiece and
table—e.g., object and object carrier—within a coordinate
system (Tian: paragraphs [0086] and [0092]). As known by
those of ordinary skill in the art, a coordinate system uses one or
more numbers to uniquely identify the position of a point or other
geometric element on a manifold, such as a plane or volume. By
fixing objects within a three-dimensional coordinate system,
Tian teaches that the unique positions of these objects are
determined and, by determining the unique positions of these
objects within the coordinate system, the position of these objects
relative to each other are known.
(Ans. 14.)
We disagree that Tian’s placing an imaged object within a three-
dimensional coordinate system discloses determining the position of one
item (e.g., object carrier) relative to another item (e.g., object) based on their
positions relative to a camera, as recited in claim 21. As Appellants
persuasively argue, “The mere fact that the model of Tian is set in a
coordinate system is not a teaching to perform particular operations to
determine relative positions among particular objects in the model.
Likewise, rectifying the model with an image might result in minor changes
to the model, but would not result in the determination of relative positions
among the objects in the model. . . .” (Reply Br. 2.) Therefore, we are
persuaded the Examiner erred in finding Tian discloses determining a
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Application 13/979,181
position of an object relative to an object carrier from two other already
determined relative positions, in particular, between the object and the
camera and between the object carrier and the camera, as required by the
claims of the present application.
CONCLUSION
We are persuaded of error in the Examiner’s finding that Tian
anticipates independent claim 21, and we reverse that rejection.
Independent claim 12 contains a commensurate recitation. Although
the Examiner rejects claim 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
Tian, the Examiner’s findings regarding the teachings of Tian are essentially
the same with the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of claim 21. (See Final
Act. 7—8.) The Examiner relies on an obviousness ground for claim 12,
instead of an anticipation ground, because the Examiner finds Tian does not
teach a first, second or third “processing unit,” but finds “[o]ne would have
been motivated to modify Tian in this manner as a matter of design choice,
as the use of one or multiple processors in image processing is considered to
be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.” (Final Act. 8.) For the
reasons as stated for claim 21, we, therefore, reverse the Examiner’s
anticipation rejection of claim 12.
The dependent claims stand with their respective independent claims.
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DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejections of claims 12—26 are
reversed.
REVERSED
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