Ex Parte Sevigny et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 18, 2018

14023075 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 18, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO.
14/023,075
71016 7590
Bose Corporation
Patent Group
FILING DATE
09/10/2013
12/20/2018
Mountain Road, MS 3B 1
Framingham, MA 01701
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Jonathan Christopher Sevigny
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
H-13-133-US 6816
EXAMINER
PATEL, PARMANAND D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2145
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/20/2018 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):
docket@bose.com
designs@bose.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JONATHAN CHRISTOPHER SEVIGNY, VIKRAM SINGH,
ANTHONY JOHN MARINO, and TREVOR LAI
Appeal2018-001740 1
Application 14/023,075
Technology Center 2100
Before BETH Z. SHAW, NORMAN H. BEAMER,
and ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Non-Final rejection of claims 1-9 and 11-21. Claim IO is cancelled. We
have jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 Appellants identify Bose Corporation as the real party in interest. (App.
Br. 2.)
Appeal2018-001740
Application 14/023,075
THE INVENTION
Appellants' disclosed and claimed invention is directed to a remote
control device for controlling an audio playback device, with a display of
image files corresponding to entities providing audio content. (Abstract.)
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter
on appeal:
1. A remote control device for controlling an audio
playback device, the remote control device comprising:
an input region operable to select from a plurality of
entities for providing audio content to the audio playback
device;
a display for displaying information associated with the
entities for providing audio content,
wherein the remote control device is configured to
request image files from the audio playback device for display
on the display, and
wherein the image files correspond to the entities for
providing audio content,
wherein the image files comprise text that has been
rendered as an image by the audio playback device.
REJECTION
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, and 3 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
being unpatentable over Juszkiewicz et al. (US 2005/0114374 Al, published
May 26, 2005) and Simard et al. (US 7,624,277 Bl, issued Nov. 24, 2009).
(Non-Final Act. 3---6.)
The Examiner rejected claims 4, 5, 6, and 7 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a)
as being unpatentable over Juszkiewicz, Simard, and Allen et al. (US
2005/0146444 Al, published July 7, 2005). (Non-Final Act. 6-10.)
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Application 14/023,075
Examiner rejected claims 8 and 9 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over Juszkiewicz, Simard, and Juszkiewicz et al. (US
2007/0230963 Al, published Oct. 4, 2007) ("Juszkiewicz. 2"). (Non-Final
Act. 10-12.)
Examiner rejected claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over Juszkiewicz, Simard, Juszkiewicz 2, and Griffiths et al.
(US 2015/0018992 Al, published Jan. 15, 2015). (Non-Final Act. 12-15.)
Examiner rejected claims 12-21 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over Juszkiewicz, Simard, Juszkiewicz 2, Griffiths, and
Krampf et al. (US 2011/0070777 Al, published Mar. 24, 2011). (Non-Final
Act. 15-24.)
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
dispositive issue2 :
Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
Juszkiewicz and Simard teaches or suggests the independent claim 1
requirement, "wherein the image files comprise text that has been rendered
as an image by the audio playback device," and whether the Examiner erred
in finding the combination of Juszkiewicz, Simard, Juszkiewicz 2, and
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed June 19, 2017) (herein, "App.
Br."); the Reply Brief (filed Dec. 6, 2017) (herein, "Reply Br."); the Non-
Final Office Action (mailed Nov. 18, 2016) (herein, "Non-Final Act."); and
the Examiner's Answer (mailed Oct. 18, 2017) (herein, "Ans.") for the
respective details.
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Application 14/023,075
Griffiths teaches or suggests the commensurate requirement of independent
claim 11. (App. Br. 4--7 .)
ANALYSIS
For the limitation at issue, the Examiner relies on the disclosure in
Simard of a method for preventing unauthorized scripting by generating a
random set of characters and altering them so as to inhibit computer
recognition but remain readable to the human user. (Non-Final Act. 4;
Simard Abstract, Fig. 3, col. 12, 11. 45-57.)
Appellants argue Simard is not analogous art, and a person of ordinary
skill in the art would not have been motivated to modify the primary
reference, Juszkiewicz, to include the technique of Simard, given that
Simard renders a text image that is more difficult to read than the original
text. (App. Br. 6-7.)
The Examiner responds that Simard is sufficiently analogous in that it
teaches or suggests images that contain text, that the text in Simard is still
human-readable after rendering, and that a person of ordinary skill is
sufficiently creative so as to tum to Simard to improve the operation of
Juszkiewicz, citing KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398,421 (2007).
(Ans. 4.)
"A reference is reasonably pertinent if, even though it may be in a
different field from that of the inventor's endeavor, it is one which, because
of the matter with which it deals, logically would have commended itself to
an inventor's attention in considering his problem." In re Klein, 647 F.3d
1343, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 201 l)(quoting In re Clay, 966 F.2d 656, 659 (Fed. Cir.
1992)). We agree with the Examiner that Simard would reasonably inform
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Appeal2018-001740
Application 14/023,075
one of ordinary skill in the art that it was possible to render an image of text
starting with plain text in digital form, such as is done in the Specification at
issue. (E.g., Spec. Fig. 4B, ,r 129.) However, we agree with Appellants that
the Examiner has not shown why it would occur to one of ordinary skill to
modify Juszkiewicz to include such a technique. Juszkiewicz already has
the ability to display text as part of a pre-stored image. (Juszkiewicz Fig. 2.)
The Examiner's reasoning for the combination - "improved technique for
human to read the content" - does not explain why one of skill in the art
would be motivated to make the additional embellishment of the claims.
Indeed, Simard is directed to making text harder to read. (Simard Fig. 3.)
The Examiner argues that "one of ordinary skill in the art may wish for the
text to be readable by humans but not recognizable by machines for many
reasons." (Ans. 5.) On this record, that observation does not logically apply
in the context of the claimed "remote control device for controlling an audio
playback device."
Therefore, we are constrained by the record to find the Examiner fails
to sufficiently support the rejection of the independent claims on appeal.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, we do not sustain the obviousness
rejection of independent claim 1 over Juszkiewicz and Simard, and of
independent claim 11 over Juszkiewicz, Simard, Juszkiewicz 2, and
Griffiths.
We also do not sustain the obviousness rejections of claims 2 and 3
over Juszkiewicz and Simard, of claims 4, 5, 6, and 7 over Juszkiewicz,
Simard, and Allen, of claims 8 and 9 over Juszkiewicz, Simard, and
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Application 14/023,075
Juszkiewicz 2, and of claims 12-21 over Juszkiewicz, Simard, Juszkiewicz
2, Griffiths, and Krampf, which claims depend from independent claims 1
or 11.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-9 and 11-21.
REVERSED
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