Ex Parte Wang et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 20, 201411826444 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 20, 2014) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE 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. 11/826,444 07/16/2007 Te-Mei Wang 67507-007 2456 65358 7590 03/20/2014 WPAT, PC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ATTORNEYS 8230 BOONE BLVD. SUITE 405 VIENNA, VA 22182 EXAMINER JOHNSON, ALLISON WALTHALL ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2691 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/20/2014 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 TE-MEI WANG and PO-JEN TSAI ____________________ Appeal 2012-000266 Application 11/826,444 Technology Center 2600 ____________________ Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR. and HUNG H. BUI, Administrative Patent Judges. BUI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-22. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM.2 1 The Real Party in Interest is AU Optronics Corp. 2 Our decision refers to Appellants’ Appeal Brief filed April 4, 2011 (“App. Br.”); Examiner’s Answer mailed July 1, 2011 (“Ans.”); Final Office Action mailed November 29, 2010 (“Final Rej.”); and the original Specification filed July 21, 2008 (“Spec.”). 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Spec. e of each b value of l urality of b y perform ixel at S1 accumula viding acc inance o r to hance an ¶¶[0001] acklight uminance locks at ing a 2. Id. An ting umulated f Appeal 2012-000266 Application 11/826,444 3 Claims on Appeal Claims 1 and 13 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1 is illustrative of Appellants’ invention and is reproduced with disputed limitations emphasized below: 1. A method for controlling luminance of a divided backlight block of a liquid crystal display (LCD), comprising: inputting an image; dividing the image into a plurality of blocks, in which each block has a plurality of pixels; obtaining a maximum color value for each pixel based on a set of color values thereof; performing a selectively established weighted operation on the maximum color value of each pixel to obtain a weighted color value for the pixel; and accumulating the weighted color values of the pixels in each block, and dividing the accumulated value by the number of the pixels in each block to generate for each block independent of the others an averaged weighting value of luminance of the block. Evidence Considered Hong US 2006/0109234 A1 May 25, 2006 Fletcher US 2007/0188438 A1 Aug. 16, 2007 Lo US 2007/0216636 A1 Sep. 20, 2007 Examiner’s Rejections (1) Claims 1-8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatenable over Hong and Fletcher. Ans. 4-6. (2) Claims 9-22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatenable over Hong, Fletcher, and Lo. Ans. 7-8. Appeal 2012-000266 Application 11/826,444 4 Issues on Appeal Based on Appellants’ arguments, the dispositive issue on appeal is whether the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatenable over Hong and Fletcher, and claims 9-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatenable over Hong, Fletcher, and Lo. In particular, the appeal turns on: (1) whether Hong and Fletcher are properly combinable; and (2) whether the Examiner’s combination of Hong, Fletcher, and Lo would result in Appellants’ claimed invention. App. Br. 11-16. ANALYSIS § 103(a) Rejection of Claims 1-8 based on Hong and Fletcher With respect to independent claim 1, the Examiner finds Hong discloses a method for controlling luminance of a divided backlight section of a liquid crystal display (LCD) comprising dividing an image into a plurality of blocks each block having a plurality of pixels; obtaining a maximum color value for each pixel based on a set of color values thereof; and accumulating maximum color values of the pixels in each block and dividing the accumulated value by the number of pixels in each block to generate an average value of luminance for each block. Ans. 4-5 (citing Hong, ¶¶[0044]-[0046]; TABLE 1; FIG. 4 and FIG. 5). The Examiner acknowledges that Hong does not teach “performing a selectively established weighted operation on a the maximum color value of each pixel to obtain a weighted color value for the pixel” and “accumulating the weighted color values of the pixels in each block, and dividing the accumulated value by the number of the pixels in each block to generate … Appeal 2012-000266 Application 11/826,444 5 an averaged weighting value of luminance of the block,” but cites Fletcher for disclosing these features, i.e., weighted color values of the pixels in each block. Id. at 5 (citing Fletcher, ¶¶[0053]-[0054] and [0063]). Based on these disclosures and their same field of endeavors, the Examiner concludes that “[i]t would have been obvious … to perform a selectively established weighted operation as taught by Flether [sic, Fletcher] on the maximum color value of each pixel of Hong, such that the method of Hong accumulates the weighted color values in each block, and generates an averaged weighting value of luminance of the block, in order to take into consideration the luminosity of different colors.” Id. at 6 (citing Fletcher, ¶[0053]). Appellants contend that the Examiner’s proposed combination of Hong and Fletcher is improper. App. Br. 11-13. In particular, Appellants argue that Hong selects only one of RGB color values and uses an average of a single grayscale pixel value for display adjustment, whereas Fletcher factors all three RGB color values for display adjustment and relies on a weighted three color average. Id. at 12. According to Appellants, Hong and Fletcher are not compatible, cannot function together in a modular device and, as such, cannot be combined in the manner suggested by the Examiner. Id. at 12-13. Appellants further argue that Fletcher teaches away from the use of a single grayscale pixel value, as disclosed by Hong. Id. However, we do not these arguments persuasive. As correctly found by the Examiner, Hong teaches using a single pixel grayscale for each pixel in determining luminance. Ans. 8. Fletcher teaches a weighting operation based on the gamma curve to balance the luminosity of different colors. Id. at 8-9 (citing Fletcher, ¶¶[0053]-[0054]; Equation 2 and Equation 3). Appeal 2012-000266 Application 11/826,444 6 Moreover, and contrary to Appellants’ arguments, Fletcher actually teaches that an average weight value can also be obtained based on a single color in the manner consistent with Hong. Id. at 9 (citing Fletcher, ¶[0063]). Consequently, we find the Examiner’s combination of Hong and Fletcher discloses the disputed limitations of Appellants’ claim 1, and do not find that Fletcher teaches away from Hong or Appellants’ claimed invention. For the reasons set forth above, Appellants have not provided us with sufficient reason to disagree with the Examiner’s factual findings regarding Hong and Fletcher and, likewise, have not persuaded us of any prejudicial error in the Examiner’s rejection of Appellants’ independent claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 1. With respect to dependent claims 2-8, Appellants simply quote each claim limitation. Appellants’ Brief is otherwise silent as to why these claims are patentable over Hong and Fletcher. Appellants present no substantive arguments regarding the claims other than merely restating the limitations called for in the claims. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (“A statement which merely points out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for separate patentability of the claim.”); In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“[W]e hold that the Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the prior art.”). For the same reasons discussed, we also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2-8. Appeal 2012-000266 Application 11/826,444 7 § 103(a) Rejection of Claims 9-22 based on Hong, Fletcher, and Lo With respect to independent claim 13, the Examiner further cites Lo for disclosing explicitly the use of “a look up table” to obtain a weighted color value. Ans. 7 (citing Lo, ¶¶[0010] and [0022]). The Examiner then concludes that “[i]t would have been obvious … to use a preselected look up table as taught by Lo to get the corresponding weighted color value as taught by Hong … Fletcher.” Id. Appellants argue the reliance on Lo is based on impermissible hindsight and Lo cannot cure the deficiencies of Hong and Fletcher. App. Br. 14-16. However, we do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive. Lo is simply cited for the use of “a look-up table.” However, such a look-up table is not necessary since Hong already teaches using the same look-up table to store peak values of a pixel. See Hong, ¶¶[0046]-[0047]; FIG. 8 and FIG. 10. Moreover, as previously discussed, we find the Examiner’s combination of Hong, Fletcher and Lo discloses the disputed limitations of Appellants’ claim 13, and do not find the Examiner’s reliance of Fletcher or Lo is based impermissible hindsight. We further agree with the Examiner that Fletcher provides “a rationale of providing luminance values which correspond to the different perceived luminances [sic] of the human eye for red, green, and blue colors, and therefore provides proper motivation and reasoning to modify the color values of Hong.” Ans. 10. For the reasons set forth above, Appellants have not persuaded us of any error in the Examiner’s rejection of Appellants’ independent claim 13. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 13. Appeal 2012-000266 Application 11/826,444 8 With respect to dependent claims 9-12 and 14-22, Appellants again each claim limitation and present no substantive arguments regarding the patentability of these claims. For the same reasons discussed, we also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 9-12 and 14-22. CONCLUSION On the record before us, we conclude that the Examiner has not erred in rejecting: (1) claims 1-8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hong and Fletcher; and (2) claims 9-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatenable over Hong, Fletcher, and Lo. DECISION As such, we AFFIRM the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-22. 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 sld Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation