MAGNA ELECTRONICS INC.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 13, 2020

15147300 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Apr. 13, 2020)

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.
15/147,300 05/05/2016 Christopher L. Van Dan Elzen MAG04-P-2742-424008 8156
153508 7590 04/13/2020
HONIGMAN LLP/MAGNA
650 TRADE CENTRE WAY
SUITE 200
KALAMAZOO, MI 49002-0402
EXAMINER
SLATER, ALISON T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2487
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/13/2020 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):
asytsma@honigman.com
patent@honigman.com
tflory@honigman.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte CHRISTOPHER L. VAN DAN ELZEN
____________

Appeal 2019-001852
Application 15/147,300
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before NORMAN H. BEAMER, ADAM J. PYONIN, and
GARTH D. BAER, Administrative Patent Judges.

BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction over the pending
rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies Magna Electronics Inc. as the real
party in interest. (Appeal Br. 2.)
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THE INVENTION
Appellant’s disclosed and claimed invention is directed to a vision
system of a vehicle that includes a camera module disposed at the vehicle
windshield and includes a continuous loop recording of image data captured
by the camera while the vehicle is operated. (Abstract.)
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal:
1. A vision system for a vehicle, said vision system
comprising:
a camera module configured for attachment at an interior
surface of a windshield of a vehicle equipped with said vision
system, said camera module comprising a camera, a control and
a recording device;
wherein, when said camera module is disposed at the
windshield of the equipped vehicle, said camera views through
the windshield and forward of the equipped vehicle, and
wherein said camera captures image data;
wherein said vision system comprises a continuous loop
recording of image data captured by said camera while the
vehicle is operated, and wherein said vision system
continuously records captured image data and erases previously
captured image data such that image data captured by said
camera for a time period is temporarily saved by said
continuous loop recording;
wherein said control comprises an image processor that
processes image data captured by said camera for at least one
driver assistance system of the vehicle;
wherein, responsive to actuation of a user input, said
control exits said continuous loop recording and said recording
device saves image data captured by said camera in non-volatile
memory of said recording device;
wherein, responsive to actuation of the user input, said
recording device saves in the non-volatile memory captured
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image data saved by said continuous loop recording prior to
actuation of the user input and saves in the non-volatile
memory image data captured by said camera after actuation of
the user input; and
wherein said recording device stops saving in the non-
volatile memory image data captured by said camera responsive
to the earlier of (a) a period of time elapsing following
actuation of the user input and (b) actuation of a further user
input.
Appeal Br. 33. (Claims Appendix.)

REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 12, 13, and 18 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Mimar (US 2012/0307050 A1, pub. Dec.
6, 2012). (Final Act. 4.)
The Examiner rejected claims 3–11, 15–17, 19, and 20 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Mimar and Wanami et al. (US
2014/0375446 A1, pub. Dec. 25, 2014) (hereinafter “Wanami”). (Final Act.
10.2)
The Examiner rejected claim 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Mimar and Felix et al. (US 2015/0087949 A1, pub. Mar.
26, 2015) (hereinafter “Felix”). (Final Act. 18.)

2 Claims 15–17 are not listed in the heading of the rejection, but are included
in the analysis. See Final Act. 10, 14–17.
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ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal and Reply Briefs present the
following issue3:
Whether the Examiner erred in finding of Mimar disclosed the
independent claim 1 requirements of
responsive to actuation of the user input, said recording device
saves in the non-volatile memory captured image data saved by
said continuous loop recording prior to actuation of the user
input and saves in the non-volatile memory image data captured
by said camera after actuation of the user input,
and the commensurate requirement in independent claim 18. (Appeal Br.
7–16; Reply Br. 2–6.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments. Arguments Appellant could have made but chose not to make
are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
In finding that Mimar discloses the independent claim 1 limitation at
issue, the Examiner relies on Mimar’s disclosure of:
(1) prior art disclosed in the Description of the Background Art of the
existence of video recording systems for teenager driving supervision cases
that are triggered by acceleration and deceleration and recorded several
seconds before and after each such trigger; and

3 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Oct. 12, 2018); the Reply Brief
(filed Dec. 28, 2018); the Final Office Action (mailed May 14, 2018); and
the Examiner’s Answer (mailed Nov. 5, 2018) for the respective details.
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(2) that in case of a trigger event, data enveloping said trigger event is saved
before transmittal to one or more predefined internet destinations.
(Final Act. 2, 6, Ans. 6–8; Mimar ¶ 4, claim 2.)
Appellant argues that “Mimar’s discussed prior art discloses video
recording systems that are triggered by a threshold level of acceleration and
deceleration” (Reply Br. 3), which is not necessarily user input, as “[t]he
accelerometer could be triggered, for example, during the sudden stop of an
accident (without pressing the gas pedal or brake pedal).” (Reply Br. 4.)
Appellant further contends that Mimar
discloses that the user may press a key to stop recording and
transfer data to a connected USB key. This is clearly unrelated
to the “trigger event” that the Examiner’s Answer relies on for
disclosing a recording device that, responsive to actuation of a
user input, saves in non-volatile memory captured image data
saved prior to actuation of the user input and image data
captured after actuation of the user input, as claimed
(collectively and in combination with the other claim elements).
(Reply Br. 5, citing Mimar ¶ 34 and In re Arkley, 455 F.2d 586, 587
(CCPA 1972).)
We are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments. The Examiner first
finds that Mimar discloses “acceleration and deceleration [as described in
the description of background art] as inherently pressing/releasing the
gasoline/brake pedals as ‘actuation of the user input.’” (Ans. 5.) The
Examiner further finds that Mimar discloses
compressed audio-video data is stored in a circular queue with a
linked list pointed by a write pointer as shown in FIG. 6, the
circular queue has to be unrolled and converted into a file
format recognizable as one of commonly used PC audio-video
file formats. This could be done, when recording is stopped by
pressing the record key (i.e., a user input) by doing post
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processing by the SoC prior to removal of USB key (i.e, stops
saving in non-volatile memory responsive to the earlier of
actuation of a further user input).
(Ans. 6–7, citing Mimar ¶ 34, emphasis by Examiner.) Claim 1 requires that
“responsive to said user input, said recording device . . . saves . . . in the
non-volatile memory image data captured by said camera and received audio
data after said user input.” For this limitation the Examiner explicitly
identifies both “pressing the record key” and “acceleration and deceleration”
as the “user input.” See Ans. 7.
While Appellant correctly argues an accelerometer would not
necessarily measure user inputs, particularly in an accident,4 the Examiner
has identified two distinct, unrelated actions as the “user input.”
[U]nless a reference discloses within the four corners of the
document not only all of the limitations claimed but also all of
the limitations arranged or combined in the same way as recited
in the claim, it cannot be said to prove prior invention of the
thing claimed and, thus, cannot anticipate under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102.
Net MoneyIN, Inc. v. VeriSign, Inc., 545 F.3d 1359, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2008).
Thus, it is not enough that the prior art reference discloses part
of the claimed invention, which an ordinary artisan might
supplement to make the whole, or that it includes multiple,
distinct teachings that the artisan might somehow combine to
achieve the claimed invention.
Net MoneyIN, 545 F.3d at 1371 (citation omitted). Because the Examiner
appears to rely on a combination of two unrelated portions of the reference

4 For example, a driver that is rear-ended without warning would not provide
any user input. Inherency requires that “the allegedly inherent characteristic
necessarily flows from the teachings of the applied prior art.” Ex parte Levy,
17 USPQ2d 1461, 1464 (BPAI 1990) (emphasis omitted).
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for the claimed “user input,” the Examiner’s analysis of Mimar does not
have the limitations arranged or combined in the same way as recited in the
claim.5
Accordingly, we are constrained by the record to reverse the
anticipation rejection of independent claims 1 and 18, as well as dependent
claims 2, 12, and 13. We are further constrained by the record to reverse the
obviousness rejections of claims 3–11, 14–17, 19, and 20, because the
Examiner fails to provide motivation to combine Mimar’s teachings in the
description of the background art with the embodiments taught in Mimar, to
yield the claimed user input and the saving of video data after receipt of the
user input, and none of the remaining references remedy these deficiencies.

5 Similarly, an anticipation rejection cannot rely on “picking, choosing, and
combining various disclosures not directly related to each other by the
teachings of the cited reference.” In re Arkley, 455 F.2d at 587.
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DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 2, 12, 13,
18
102(a)(1) Mimar 1, 2, 12, 13,
18
3–11, 15–
17, 19, 20
103 Mimar, Wanami 3–11, 15–
17, 19, 20
14 103 Mimar, Felix 14
Overall
Outcome
1–20

REVERSED