Ex Parte Reshetov et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 31, 2014

11301699 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 31, 2014)

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.
11/301,699 12/12/2005 Alexander V. Reshetov ITL.1849US (P20386) 2208
47795 7590 07/31/2014
TROP, PRUNER & HU, P.C.
1616 S. VOSS RD., SUITE 750
HOUSTON, TX 77057-2631
EXAMINER
AMINI, JAVID A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2617
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/31/2014 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte ALEXANDER V. RESHETOV, ALEXEL M. SOUPIKOV,
and ALEXANDER D. KAPUSTIN
____________

Appeal 2012-003048
Application 11/301,699
Technology Center 2600
____________

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JEFFREY S. SMITH, and
STANLEY M. WEINBERG, Administrative Patent Judges.

SMITH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2012-003048
Application 11/301,699

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 5–11, 13–15, 18, and 20, which are all the claims
remaining in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

Representative Claim
Claim 5. A method comprising:
generating a group of rays;
determining an originating point and a direction for each ray in the
group;
determining a group of rays to be coherent if all rays in the group
travel in the same direction for each coordinate x, y, and z;
determining a group of rays to be incoherent otherwise and traversing
the group of incoherent rays differently from the coherent group of rays; and
electronically processing said coherent and incoherent rays to depict
images on a display.

Prior Art
James Arvo and David Kirk, Fast Ray Tracing by Ray Classification,
Computer Graphics, Vol. 21, No. 4, (July 1987). (hereinafter “Arvo”).

Marc Levoy, Efficient Ray Tracing of Volume Data, ACM Transactions on
Graphics, Vol. 9, No.3, 245–261 (July 1990). (hereinafter “Levoy”).

Erik Reinhard, Alan Chalmers, Frederik W. Jansen, Hybrid Scheduling for
Parallel Rendering using Coherent Ray Tasks, 1999 IEEE, 21–28 (October
1999). (hereinafter “Reinhard”).

Alex Klimovitski, Using SSE and SSE2: Misconceptions and Reality, Intel
Developer UPDATEMagazine, 1–8 (March 2001). (hereinafter
“Klimovitski).

Appeal 2012-003048
Application 11/301,699

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Examiner’s Rejections
Claims 5–11, 13–15, 18, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, first paragraph, as failing to comply with the enablement requirement.
Claims 7–9, 11, 18, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph, as being indefinite.
Claim 18 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to non-
statutory subject matter.
Claims 5, 18, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Reinhard and Arvo.
Claims 6–9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Reinhard, Arvo, and Levoy.
Claims 10, 11, and 13–15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Reinhard, Arvo, Levoy, and Klimovitski.

ANALYSIS
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph
The Examiner finds “a group of rays to be incoherent,” as recited in
each of independent claims 5, 18, and 20 is not enabled by Appellants’
Specification. Ans. 6. Appellants, in the heading on top of page 11 of the
Appeal Brief, question whether claims 5-11, 13-15, 18, and 20 fail to
comply with the enablement requirement. However, Appellants do not
present arguments or persuasive evidence to show why the Examiner erred
in rejecting these claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph.
Accordingly, Appellants have not shown error in the Examiner’s rejection.
We sustain the rejection of claims 5–11, 13–15, 18, and 20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, first paragraph.
Appeal 2012-003048
Application 11/301,699

4
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph
1

The Examiner finds “a group of rays” recited in claims 7–9, 18, and
20, and “an originating point” recited in claim 11 lack antecedent basis.
Final Rej. 3–4. Appellants contend these terms satisfy the requirements of
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph. App. Br. 11.
We agree with Appellants. We find no basis for the Examiner’s
conclusion that the term “a group of rays” recited in claims 7–9, 18, and 20,
and the term “an originating point” recited in claim 11, lack antecedent
basis. Nor has the Examiner explained how “a group of rays” or “an
originating point” are indefinite. We therefore do not sustain the rejection of
claims 7–9, 18, and 20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, second paragraph.

Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101
The Examiner finds the scope of the “medium” recited in claim 18
encompasses a signal. Ans. 7. Although Appellants contend that page 3 of
Appellants’ Specification has nothing to do with what a computer readable
medium is (App. Br. 12), Appellants have not addressed the Examiner’s
finding that the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claimed “computer
accessible medium” encompasses a non-statutory signal. Accordingly,
Appellants have thus not provided persuasive explanation to rebut the

1
On page 4 of the Examiner’s Answer, the Examiner indicates the rejection
of claims 7–9, 18, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph has been
withdrawn. However, on page 5 of the Answer, the Examiner indicates this
rejection still stands. To avoid further misunderstanding, we address this
rejection on the merits.
Appeal 2012-003048
Application 11/301,699

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Examiner’s finding that the scope of claim 18 encompasses non-statutory
subject matter.
We therefore sustain the rejection of claim 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103
We adopt the Examiner’s findings of fact made in the Final Rejection
and Examiner’s Answer as our own. We concur with the conclusions
reached in the Examiner’s Answer. We highlight the following for
emphasis.
Appellants contend Reinhard does not teach “determining a group of
rays to be coherent if all the rays travel in the same direction for each
coordinate,” as recited in claim 5. App. Br. 12. According to Appellants,
Reinhard treats all rays as incoherent and never determines coherency. App.
Br. 12–13.
We disagree with Appellants’ contention that Reinhard treats all rays
as incoherent and never determines coherency. To the contrary, Reinhard
teaches a hybrid scheduling algorithm which brings tasks and data together
according to coherence between rays. Abstract; see also Title (Hybrid
Scheduling for Parallel Rendering using Coherent Ray Tasks). The coherent
tasks, which require a small data set, are re-scheduled as demand driven
tasks, while the remainder of tasks are handled in data parallel fashion.
Introduction (“coherence could be the criterion to subdivide tasks into data
parallel and demand driven parts”); Section 5 (“Coherence implies that such
a bundle of rays probably needs only a small subset of the data which can be
easily determined using the pyramid clipping algorithm”).
Appeal 2012-003048
Application 11/301,699

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Further, Appellants have not provided persuasive evidence or
argument to rebut the Examiner’s finding (Ans. 12) that Section 4 and
Figure 3 of Reinhard teach “determining a group of rays to be coherent if all
the rays travel in the same direction for each coordinate.” See Section 4
(“despite the large number of inter-reflection rays, the number of (coherent)
shadow rays is still larger”). The Examiner’s finding is supported by
substantial evidence which has not been persuasively rebutted by
Appellants.
We sustain the rejection of claim 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Appellants
do not present arguments for separate patentability of claims 6–11, 13–15,
18, and 20 which fall with claim 5.

DECISION
The rejection of claims 5–11, 13–15, 18, and 20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, first paragraph, as failing to comply with the enablement requirement
is affirmed.
The rejection of claims 7–9, 11, 18, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph, as being indefinite is reversed.
The rejection of claim 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to non-
statutory subject matter is affirmed.
The rejection of claims 5, 18, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Reinhard and Arvo is affirmed.
The rejection of claims 6–9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Reinhard, Arvo, and Levoy is affirmed.
The rejection of claims 10, 11, and 13–15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Reinhard, Arvo, Levoy, and Klimovitski is affirmed.
Appeal 2012-003048
Application 11/301,699

7
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.50(f).
Because we have affirmed at least one ground of rejection with
respect to each claim on appeal, the Examiner’s decision is affirmed. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(a)(1).

AFFIRMED

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