Ex Parte Potter et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jun 7, 2012

10818648 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 7, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte WESLEY R. POTTER, DAVID PETER LUCAS,
and BRADLEY JAMES GOUR
____________

Appeal 2010-003903
Application 10/818,648
Technology Center 3700
____________

Before CHARLES N. GREENHUT, MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, and
JAMES P. CALVE, Administrative Patent Judges.

CALVE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the rejection of claims
1-6 and 8-41. App. Br. 3.1 Claim 7 has been canceled. App. Br. 2. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6.
We AFFIRM.

1 Refers to Appeal Brief filed Feb. 17, 2009.
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Application 10/818,648

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THE INVENTION
Claim 1 illustrates the claimed subject matter on appeal:
1. A method for loading data for a game while
playing a video, the method comprising:
reading information in a plurality of sections from a file,
each section including one of video information and data for a
game, the video information and game data being interleaved in
the file being read such that the video information may be read
and used to play a section of the video, wherein during the
playing of the section of the video, a section of the game data is
read and stored;
for each section that is read from the interleaved file,
performing the steps of:
determining if the read information is video
information or game data;
if the information is video information, playing a
section of the video using the video information; and
if the information is game data, storing a section of
the game data in a game file for use by a game program for
game play by a user based on a header in the information
associating the section of game data with the game file.

REJECTIONS2
Claims 1-6, 8, and 15-41 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
being anticipated by Suzuoki (EP 0 867 807 B1; pub. May 26, 2004).
Claims 9, 10, 11, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Suzuoki in view of Moulsley (US 2001/0006520
A1; pub. Jul. 5, 2001) and Inoue (WO 02/065296 A1; pub. Aug. 22, 2002).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Suzuoki, in view of Stirling (US 6,865,188 B1; iss. Mar. 8, 2005).

2 See Revised Appeal Brief filed April 1, 2009, at 2-3. All other references
to the Appeal Brief (App. Br.) are to the Appeal Brief filed February 17,
2009.
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ANALYSIS
Claims 1-6, 8, and 14-41 as anticipated by Suzuoki
Appellants present arguments for independent claims 1 and 6.3 App.
Br. 9-15; Reply Br. 4-10. We select claim 1 as representative and address
Appellants’ arguments for claim 6. Independent claims 15, 20, 24, 29, and
40 and dependent claims 2-5, 8, 14, 16-19, 21-23, 25-28, 30-39, and 41
stand or fall with claims 1 and 6. See 37 C.F.R. 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2011).
Claim 1
The Examiner found that Suzuoki discloses a method for loading
game data while playing a video game including reading video information
and playing a section of the video during which a section of game data is
read and stored. Ans. 3-4. The Examiner also found that Suzuoki stores
game data in a main program memory (memory 45b) and the game data
would be stored in files (game files) as called for in claim 1. Ans. 5, 7. The
Examiner further found that Suzuoki associates an ID and ADDRESS at the
head of each sector of interleaved data and uses this “header” information to
retrieve and store game data in program memory for use by a program for
game play by a user based on the header information associating the game
data with the game program/file that is retrieved and stored in the main
program memory. Ans. 4-5. The Examiner found that Suzuoki thus stores
game data in a game file in certain memory locations by using an ID and
ADDRESS of the head of each sector so as to run the game data by program
code during game play by a player. Ans. 7.

3 Appellants argue that Suzuoki does not disclose each and every limitation
of claims 15, 20, 24, 29, and 40 for at least a similar rationale as discussed
for claims 1 and 6. App. Br. 15; Reply Br. 10.
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Appellants argue that Suzuoki merely discloses that each section of
interleaved program code and data is preceded by an ID and an ADDRESS
in an interleaved file as disclosed in Figure 7 of Suzuoki and therefore does
not disclose a header that associates the section of game data with the game
file as called for in claim 1. App. Br. 10-11; Reply Br. 5-6. Appellants also
argue that the claimed header is disclosed in Figure 6 of the Specification as
including a first section 602 and is used to determine the name of the file,
how many blocks of data to read, and other information for the file. App.
Br. 10-11; Reply Br. 4-5. These arguments are not persuasive because claim
1 calls for storing a section of game data in a game file for use by a game
program for game play based on a header in the game data information and
we decline to read unclaimed features of the header from the Specification
into claim 1. See Office Action mailed Apr. 30, 2008 at 5. The Examiner
reasonably found that Suzuoki discloses a “header” in the form of an ID and
ADDRESS that are associated with game program code and data and used to
identify, retrieve, and store sections of game data in program memory 43b
for game play when a player selects a game program/file to play. Appellants
acknowledge that the ID is used to identify and store sections of game data
in program memory 43b. See App. Br. 12; Suzuoki, para. [0050]. We agree
with the Examiner that Suzuoki stores a section of game data for use by a
game program based on the header information. Suzuoki also discloses that
the ADDRESS is used to retrieve program data from a storage medium for a
game program that a user selects. See Suzuoki, paras. [0044, 0049].
Appellants also argue that Suzuoki fails to disclose that the divided
program data is stored in a game file as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 12. In
this regard, Appellants further argue that Suzuoki does not use the IDs to
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associate a particular section of game data with a particular game file as
recited in claim 1, but instead uses IDs as a data type indicator to associate a
particular section of game data with a section of memory in which the data is
stored. Reply Br. 7. Appellants also assert that Suzuoki’s disclosure that
program data is stored in a program storage region 45b of main memory 45
does not support the Examiner’s finding that Suzuoki stores game data into
memory in game files as called for in claim 1. App. Br. 13. In particular,
Appellants contend that one of ordinary skill in the art would not understand
this disclosure of Suzuoki to necessarily require that files be rebuilt in
memory with the ID as a head because Suzuoki does not disclose that the
uniform 2048 byte sectors read from the interleaved file are stored into game
files as recited but simply suggests that programs and data are loaded into a
predetermined area of memory whereupon the program can be started. App.
Br. 14; Reply Br. 8.
These arguments are not persuasive because claim 1 does not call for
the game files to be rebuilt in memory. Claim 1 calls for storing a section of
the game data in a game file for use by the game program for game play.4
The Examiner had a sound basis for finding that Suzuoki stores game data in
program memory 45b based on header information that associates that game
data with a game/game file for use in game play and Appellants have not
persuaded us of error in these findings. Suzuoki discloses that programs are

4 We understand a “file” to be a collection of data (see Office Action, mailed
Apr. 30, 2008 at 5) and Appellants disclose that data is divided into files.
See Spec. paras. [0035, 0036]. Appellants also disclose that data pertaining
to files is stored in memory or on a storage medium. See Spec. paras. [0041,
0053, 0070]. Therefore, we interpret the limitation “storing a section of
game data in a game file” to mean “storing data of a game file in memory.”
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stored in units or sectors (paras. 0008, 0011]; fig. 7) and when a user selects
a program, the main CPU 44 reads and retrieves data for that game program
(para. [0049]) and stores the program data in the program storage region 45b
of the main memory (para. [0050]) based on header information. See figs. 9,
10 (S2, S4). The main CPU 44 continues to read and retrieve data until the
specified program is loaded into the main memory. Para. [0051]; figs. 10
(S6-S8). The Examiner reasonably found that Suzuoki reassembles sectors
of a program in memory based on header information when a user selects a
particular game to play and that the reassembled program corresponds to a
game file, which Appellants disclose as a collection of data that is needed to
provide a game where the data may include libraries, game data, character
data, software code, or any other information needed by a game program for
the game. Spec. para. [0035, 0036]. Suzuoki’s retrieval and loading of data
for a program in memory based on header information corresponds to
storing a section of game data in a game file for use by a game program.
Suzuoki, paras. [0046, 0051-52]; figs. 9, 10.
As such, we sustain the rejection of claims 1-5 and 34.
Claim 6
Independent claim 6 recites a method for creating a file that allows a
game device to play a video while loading data for the game comprising
generating a header associating a section of the game data with a game file
in the list of files associated with the game. The Examiner found that
Suzuoki stores files needed to play video games on a medium and thereby
creates a list of files needed for each game. Ans. 4. The Examiner also
found that Suzuki uses an ID and ADDRESS to determine the type of data in
a file program (program or image data) and the location of file for a game
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and therefore the ID and ADDRESS are associated with the game program
file that is stored in memory and are used by a gaming device to access the
game data and file during game play by a game player. Ans. 8.
Appellants argue that Suzuoki merely discloses an ID that identifies
the data type and such identification of the particular data type by the ID in
Suzuoki does not disclose an association between a section of game data and
a game file in a list of game files as recited in claim 6. App. Br. 14-15.
Appellants also argue that the generated header of claim 6 has a substantially
different function from determining data type with the ID but associates a
section of the game data with a game file in the list of files. Reply Br. 9.
We agree with the Examiner that Suzuoki stores video and game data on a
medium in interleaved fashion and associates header information (an ID and
ADDRESS) with each sector of game data of a game file/game program that
is stored on the medium so the game data can be retrieved using this header
when a player selects a game to play from a list of programs/game files. See
Suzuoki, paras. [0049-0053]; figs. 7, 10, 11.
As such, we sustain the rejection of claims 6, 8, 14, and 35.
Claims 15, 20, 24, 29, and 40
Appellants argue that Suzuoki does not disclose the limitations of
independent claims 15, 20, 24, 29, and 40 for the reasons discussed for
claims 1 and 6. This argument is not persuasive for the reasons discussed
supra for claims 1 and 6. As such, we sustain the rejection of claims 15-41.
Claims 9, 10, 11, and 13 as unpatentable over Suzuoki, Moulsley, and Inoue
The Examiner rejected claims 9, 10, 11, and 13, which depend from
claim 6, based on Suzuoki, Moulsley, and Inoue. Ans. 6. Appellants argue
that these claims are patentable because Moulsley and Inoue do not cure the
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deficiencies of Suzuoki noted above. App. Br. 17. Because we sustain the
rejection of claim 6 based on Suzuoki, there are no deficiencies for Moulsley
and Inoue to cure and we sustain the rejection of claims 9, 10, 11, and 13.
Claim 12 as unpatentable over Suzuoki and Stirling
The Examiner rejected claim 12, which depends from claim 6, based
on Suzuoki and Stirling finding that Stirling discloses features of claim 12.
Ans. 6. Appellants argue that Stirling does not cure the deficiencies of
Suzuoki noted above. App. Br. 17. Because we sustain the rejection of
claim 6 based on Suzuoki, there are no deficiencies for Stirling to cure and
we sustain the rejection of claim 12.
DECISION
The rejections of claims 1-6 and 8-41 are AFFIRMED.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

JRG