Famous Industries, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 20, 2022

2020005666 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 20, 2022)

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. 14/054,570 10/15/2013 Mark H. Lu 4685-00-001U01 5608 86012 7590 01/20/2022 VLP Law Group LLP 555 Bryant Street Suite 820 Palo Alto, CA 94301 EXAMINER EL-BKAILY, AHMAD M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2176 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/20/2022 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): patents@vlplawgroup.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MARK H. LU, STEVEN E. NEWCOMB, BRIAN R. MAISSEY, and ANDREW J. L. DE ANDRADE Appeal 2020-005666 Application 14/054,570 Technology Center 2100 Before JAMES R. HUGHES, JOHN A. EVANS, and JENNIFER L. McKEOWN, Administrative Patent Judges. HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Claims 1, 5-10, 14-19, and 23-28 are pending, stand rejected, are appealed by Appellant, and are the subject of our decision under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a).1 See Final Act. 1; Appeal Br. 5.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Famous Industries, Inc. See Appeal Br. 3. 2 We refer to Appellant’s Specification (“Spec.”), filed Oct. 15, 2013 (claiming benefit of US 61/714,130, filed Oct. 15, 2012 (see Spec. ¶ 1)); Appeal 2020-005666 Application 14/054,570 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claimed subject matter, according to Appellant, generally “relates to efficient manipulation of surfaces in multi-dimensional space using energy agents” (Spec. ¶ 2), or more simply rendering information (images) in an Internet browser (see Spec. ¶¶ 3-5). More specifically, Appellant’s claims are directed to computer program products, systems, and methods for rendering contexts using an internet (web) browser. Such contexts may be documents and the contexts may have different surfaces (i.e., different information from the document is rendered/displayed). See Spec. ¶¶ 3-7. The method displays (renders) a screen (viewport) that includes multiple contexts (first and second contexts) where each context includes Document Object Model (DOM) elements and the contexts are displayed in a multi- dimensional space. The contexts are each associated with an instance of a physics engine and energy agents are attached to the DOM elements, such that the energy agents provide the DOM elements with attributes. The method detects events manipulating the DOM elements of the contexts and pipelines the energy agents attached to the particular DOM elements to the physics engine associated with the particular context (which includes the particular DOM elements). The method computes a transformation of the manipulated DOM elements based on attributes of the events (that manipulate the DOM elements) as well as attributes provided by the energy agents, and applies visual effects representing the manipulating the DOM Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.”), filed Jan. 29, 2020; and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”), filed July 29, 2020. We also refer to the Examiner’s Final Office Action (“Final Act.”), mailed Mar. 28, 2019; and Answer (“Ans.”) mailed May 29, 2020. Appeal 2020-005666 Application 14/054,570 3 elements of the context(s), which are based on the computed transformation of the DOM elements. See Spec. ¶¶ 7-11; Abstract. Claim 1 (directed to a method), claim 10 (directed to a computer program product), claim 19 (directed to a system), and claim 28 (directed to a system) are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A computer-implemented method comprising: rendering via a web browser a viewport including a first context including one or more first DOM elements for display in a multi-dimensional space, and a second context including one or more second DOM elements for display in the multidimensional space; associating a first instance of a physics engine with the first context; associating a second instance of a physics engine with the second context; attaching one or more first energy agents to the one or more first DOM elements, the one or more first energy agents providing the one or more first DOM elements with one or more first attributes; attaching one or more second energy agents to the one or more second DOM elements, the one or more second energy agents providing the one or more second DOM elements with one or more second attributes; detecting one or more events manipulating the one or more first DOM elements of the first context; piping the one or more first energy agents attached to the one or more first DOM elements to the first instance of the physics engine associated with the first context that includes the one or more first DOM elements; computing, independent of the second context using the first instance of the physics engine, a transformation of the one or more first DOM elements of the first context in the multi- dimensional space based on one or more attributes of the one or more events and the one or more first attributes provided to the Appeal 2020-005666 Application 14/054,570 4 one or more first DOM elements by the one or more first energy agents; and applying a visual effect manipulating the one or more first DOM elements of the first context based on the transformation of the one or more first DOM elements computed based on the one or more attributes of the one or more events and the one or more first attributes provided to the one or more first DOM elements by the one or more first energy agents attached to the one or more first DOM elements of the first context of the viewport. Appeal Br. 40-41 (Claims App.). Appeal 2020-005666 Application 14/054,570 5 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date Mason et al. (“Mason”) US 2011/0196864 A1 Aug. 11, 2011 Mejdrich et al. (“Mejdrich”) US 2013/0046518 A1 Feb. 21, 2013 (filed Aug. 18, 2011) Rodgers US 2013/0086516 A1 Apr. 4, 2013 (filed Apr. 30, 2012) Lewin et al. (“Lewin”) US 2013/0159893 A1 June 20, 20133 Leece US 2013/0346851 A1 Dec. 26, 2013 (filed June 25, 2012) REJECTIONS4 1. The Examiner rejects claims 1, 6-10, 15-19, and 24-28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Rodgers, Leece, and Mejdrich. See Final Act. 2-7. 2. The Examiner rejects claims 5, 14, and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Rodgers, Leece, Mejdrich, Lewin, and Mason. See Final Act. 7-9. 3 Lewin (US 2013/0159893 A1), published June 20, 2013, was filed on Dec. 14, 2012, claiming benefit of provisional application No. US 61/576,870, which was filed on Dec. 16, 2011. 4 The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”), Pub. L. No. 112-29, 125 Stat. 284 (2011), amended 35 U.S.C. § 103. Because the present application has an effective filing date prior to the AIA’s effective (March 16, 2013), this decision refers to 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Appeal 2020-005666 Application 14/054,570 6 ANALYSIS Obviousness Rejection of Claims 1, 6-10, 15-19, and 24-28 The Examiner rejects independent claim 1 (as well as independent claims 10, 19, and 28, and dependent claims 6-9, 15-18, and 24-27) as being obvious over Rodgers, Leece, and Mejdrich. See Final Act. 2-5; Ans. 3-9. The Examiner relies on Rodgers for teaching most of the features of Appellant’s claim 1, including animation (a physics engine), energy agents, detecting manipulation of elements in a context, transformation, and applying visual effects. See Final Act. 3-5; Ans. 3-9 (citing Rodgers ¶¶ 81- 83, 85, 96, 106, 109-114, 149). The Examiner further relies on Mejdrich for describing multiple physics engine instances and piping (pipelining) information (the energy agents). See Final Act. 4-5; Ans. 4-9 (citing Mejdrich¶¶ 9, 86-88, 142-144). The Examiner additionally relies on Leece for teaching the DOM elements. See Final Act. 5; Ans. 4-9 (citing Leece ¶¶ 5, 28). Appellant contends that Rodgers, Leece, and Mejdrich do not render claim 1 obvious. See Appeal Br. 16-38; Reply Br. 16-41. Specifically, Appellant contends, inter alia, that the Examiner has not provided a sufficient explanation of how one would combine Rodgers’ motion (physics) model (which determines the energy to impart on an object as well as the mass to assign to an object) with Mejdrich’s multithreaded physics engine and Leece’s general teaching of DOM elements, or provided a sufficient rationale for the combination. See Appeal Br. 32-38; Reply Br. 35-41. In the current rejection, the Office’s conclusory statements do not provide a rationale how and why a person skilled in the art would combine the energy “e” and mass value “m” in Rodgers or the physical collision detection in Mejdrich with “the animation of DOM elements within the HTML markup” in Appeal 2020-005666 Application 14/054,570 7 Leece, much less a reason why the teaching of Leece is to be combined with the teachings of Rodgers and Mejdrich in a way the claimed new invention does. Accordingly, Applicant submits that the Office Action inadequately relied on Leece because it merely mentioned DOM elements generally. Appeal Br. 38. We find Appellant’s arguments persuasive of Examiner error. Rodgers describes “moving objects such as a display window about a display frame by combining classical mechanics of motion” (Abstr.), i.e., using a motion model. See Rodgers ¶¶ 81-84. Rodgers’ motion (physics) model uses variables and user inputs to determine the energy to impart on an object and a mass value to assign to the object in order transform the inputs and model motion of the object on the display. See Id. Mejdrich describes a multithreaded physics engine that implements a pipelined software engine for a Network On Chip (NOC) integrated circuit to render images and perform, for example, collision detection of moving objects in a scene. See Mejdrich ¶¶ 86-88, 142-144. As pointed out by Appellant (supra), the Examiner-cited portions of Leece merely describe DOM elements in general terms. See Leece ¶¶ 5, 28. But the Examiner-cited portions of Rodgers and Mejdrich do not mention HTML DOM elements and the Examiner does not explain in sufficient detail how or why one would fit Leece’s DOM elements into the combination of Rodgers and Mejdrich. Further, the Examiner does not sufficiently explain how one would combine Mejdrich’s software pipelining scheme with Rodger’s physics model. Consequently, we are constrained by the record before us to find that the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of Rodgers, Leece, and Mejdrich renders obvious Appellant’s claim 1. Independent claims 10, 19, and 28 include limitations of commensurate scope. Claims 6-9, 15-18, and Appeal 2020-005666 Application 14/054,570 8 24-27 depend from and stand with their respective base claims. Thus, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 1, 6-10, 15-19, and 24-28. Obviousness Rejection of Claims 5, 14, and 23 The Examiner rejects claims 5, 14, and 23 as being obvious in view of Rodgers, Leece, Mejdrich, Lewin, and Mason. See Final Act. 7-9. For the same reasons as claim 1, Appellant persuades us of error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 5, 14, and 23. Therefore, we reverse the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 5, 14, and 23. CONCLUSION Appellant has shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 5- 10, 14-19, and 23-28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 5-10, 14-19, and 23-28. Appeal 2020-005666 Application 14/054,570 9 DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 6-10, 15- 19, 24-28 103(a) Rodgers, Leece, Mejdrich 1, 6-10, 15- 19, 24-28 5, 14, 23 103(a) Rodgers, Leece, Mejdrich, Lewin, Mason 5, 14, 23 Overall Outcome 1, 5-10, 14- 19, 23-28 REVERSED