Ex Parte Park

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Apr 30, 2010

09941837 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 30, 2010)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte SANG O. PARK
_____________

Appeal 2009-006635
Application 09/941,837
Technology Center 2400
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Decided: April 30, 2010
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Before KENNETH W. HAIRSTON, CARLA M. KRIVAK,
and ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judges.

HAIRSTON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1 to 6, 8 to 11, 13 to 22, 24 to 28, 30, and 31.1 We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
Appellant’s invention is concerned with an apparatus and method of
displaying broadcast information for a television (Spec. ¶¶ [0001], [0019]-
[0022]; Figs. 2, 3). Appellant discloses and claims a method and apparatus
for displaying information for a region including information relating to an
object in a specific region or interactive region, whereby a user can obtain
specific information, such as an Internet Web site or URL, by positioning a
cursor within the specific or interactive region. The user is notified by a
change in color or shape of the cursor that the specific information is
available regarding the object (claims 1, 5, 11, 16, 21, and 25; Abstract).
Claim 1, reproduced below with emphasis added, is representative of
the subject matter on appeal:
1. An apparatus for displaying broadcast information of a television
comprising:

a broadcast service provider transmitting broadcast signals of each
broadcast program including region information and specific information for
each region, the region information indicating a region whereby specific
information exists and the specific information including a plurality of
information data relating to an object included within a specific region; and

a television receiver for receiving the broadcast signals transmitted
from the broadcast service provider, video processing the received broadcast

1 Claims 7, 12, 23, and 29 have been canceled.

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signals and displaying them through a screen, and displaying the specific
information of a corresponding region when a user selects a certain region
on the screen, wherein a position of a cursor is moved over the screen in
accordance with movement of an indicating device and the television
receiver changes a shape or color of the cursor when the cursor is
positioned within the specific region in which the specific information exists
regarding the object within the specific region. (Emphasis added).

The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
Kikinis US 5,929,849 July 27, 1999
Kitsukawa US 6,282,713 B1 Aug. 28, 2001
Alba US 2002/0184627 A1 Dec. 5, 2002
(effective filing date Feb. 27, 1998)

The following obviousness rejections are before us for review:
Claims 1 to 4 and 30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Kitsukawa and Alba.
Claims 5, 6, 9 to 11, 13 to 22, and 24 to 28 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kikinis and Alba.
Claims 8 and 31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Kikinis and Alba, further in view of Kitsukawa.
In all of the above listed rejections, the Examiner relies upon the
secondary reference to Alba as describing the feature of changing a shape or
color of a cursor when the cursor is positioned at the edge of a program
matrix, thereby indicating that additional information is available to the user
(Ans. 4). The Examiner states that Alba teaches that the cursor’s
configuration is dependent upon the location of the cursor (Ans. 4). The
Examiner determines that it would have been obvious to modify the cursor

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of either Kitsukawa (as to claims 1 to 4 and 30) or Kikinis (as to claims 5, 6,
8 to 11, 13 to 22, 24 to 28, and 31) to change the configuration depending on
the location of the pointer/cursor as taught by Alba “in order to provide an
unobtrusive, user-friendly interface to available information” (Ans. 4, 7; see
also Ans. 11).
Each of the independent claims on appeal recites changing the shape
or color of a cursor when the cursor is positioned (i) within a specified
region in which specific information exists regarding an object within the
specified region (see claims 1, 16, 21, and 25), (ii) at a location
corresponding to a region of the screen where specific information exists
(claim 5), or (iii) in an area corresponding to an interactive image region
(claim 11). In other words, each of the independent claims on appeal
requires that the changing of the shape or color of the cursor occurs when
the cursor is located either within a specific/interactive image region or at a
location corresponding to the specific/interactive image region.
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, it is incumbent upon the
Examiner to establish a factual basis to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1073 (Fed. Cir. 1988). On the
record before us we find no supportive evidence for the Examiner’s assertion
(Ans. 4) that Alba teaches the concept of changing cursor shape or color
when the cursor is positioned within a specific region which is associated
with information existing regarding an object within that region as set forth
in each of the independent claims on appeal. The portions of Alba relied
upon by the Examiner as describing this concept (Fig. 1; ¶¶ [0092]-[0094])
deal with changing the configuration (i.e., shape) of a cursor for indicating

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availability of additional information in an electronic program guide (EPG).
The additional information is not information concerning an object (e.g., the
car in Appellant’s Fig. 4 in region B), and instead is information occurring in
additional information window 512 which relates to EPG navigation (see
Figs. 10A, 10B). In addition, Appellant is correct (App. Br. 13-14; Reply
Br. 2-6) that Alba’s cursor 110 only changes shape when it is located at an
edge of the program matrix 108, and therefore Alba fails to teach or suggest
changing cursor shape when the cursor is located within the region
containing an object.
Thus, the Examiner has not sufficiently established that Alba discloses
or suggests changing the shape or color of the cursor when the cursor is
located either within a specific/interactive image region or at a location
corresponding to the specific/interactive image region, as set forth in the
claims on appeal. The Examiner has also not sufficiently established that it
would have been obvious to modify Kitsukawa (claims 1 to 4 and 30) or
Kikinis (claims 5, 6, 8 to 11, 13 to 22, 24 to 28, and 31) to include this
missing feature.
Furthermore, the Examiner’s articulated reasoning in the rejection
must possess a rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness. See In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006). Other
than asserting that it would have been obvious to modify the cursor of either
Kitsukawa or Kikinis to change configuration depending on the location of
the pointer/cursor as taught by Alba to provide an unobtrusive, user-friendly
interface to available information (Ans. 4, 7, and 11), the Examiner has not
articulated how or why it would have been obvious to locate the cursor

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within the specific or interactive image region as set forth in the independent
claims on appeal, as opposed to merely at the edge of the program matrix
108 as taught by Alba (¶ [0093]). Likewise, the Examiner has not
articulated how or why it also would have been obvious to replace the
additional information concerning EPG navigation taught by Alba with
specific information relating to an object inside a specific region as claimed,
when both Kitsukawa (e.g., Fig. 5; see col. 7, l. 61 to col. 9, l. 11 describing
advertising information regarding object 511 being obtained by using cursor
at location 521) and Kikinis (e.g., Fig. 2C; see col. 8, ll. 1-64 where web site
information about a car in an advertisement can be provided in window 71)
describe information concerning objects in a specific region instead of EPG
navigation information.
Appellant is correct that Alba, whether taken individually or in
combination with Kitsukawa (see App. Br. 11-16; Reply Br. 2-3) or Kikinis
(see App. Br. 16-36; Reply Br. 3-6), fails to teach or suggest changing the
shape or color of a cursor when specific information exists corresponding to
an object within a specific region of the screen. Accordingly, we will not
sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of any of independent claims
1, 5, 11, 16, 21, and 25, and we will also not sustain the Examiner’s
obviousness rejections of dependent claims 2 to 4, 6, 8 to 10, 13 to 15, 17 to
20, 22, 24, 26 to 28, 30, and 31, which ultimately depend from respective
independent claims 1, 5, 11, 16, 21, and 25.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the obviousness
rejections of claims 1 to 6, 8 to 11, 13 to 22, 24 to 28, 30, and 31 because (i)
the Examiner has not established a factual basis to support the legal

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conclusion of obviousness (see Fine, 837 F.2d at 1073), and (ii) the
Examiner’s articulated reason for modifying the teachings of Kitsukawa or
Kikinis with those of Alba does not support a legal conclusion of
obviousness. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007).
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1 to 6, 8 to 11, 13 to 22,
24 to 28, 30, and 31 is reversed.

REVERSED

KIS

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