Application of Noll, Patent Appeal No. 74-541.
Citation | 545 F.2d 141 |
Decision Date | 18 November 1976 |
Docket Number | Patent Appeal No. 74-541. |
Parties | Application of A. Michael NOLL. |
Court | United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals |
William Ryan, atty. of record, Murray Hill, N. J., for appellant.
Joseph F. Nakamura, Washington, D. C., for the Commissioner of Patents; Jere W. Sears, Washington, D. C., of counsel.
Before MARKEY, Chief Judge, and RICH, BALDWIN, LANE and MILLER, Associate Judges.
This is an appeal from the decision of the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Board of Appeals (board) sustaining the rejection of claims 2, 7, 8, 9, and 10 of appellant's application for "Raster Scan Computer Graphics System."1 Claims 1, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, and 13 stand allowed. We reverse.
The invention relates to a system and apparatus for the display of text or other graphical information on a device such as a cathode ray tube. The data to be displayed are supplied by a computer or similar source in "point-plotting" format in which each element (point, line, character, etc.) is individually specified. The output display device is of the raster-scan or television-like format where a picture is reproduced by selective energization of a repetitively scanned beam. The system involves scan-converting the point-specifying input data into a form suitable for storage in a dotmatrix format for subsequent readout and presentation to the output display device.
The system disclosed in the application is illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2 thereof, reproduced below. The hardware is not disclosed as being novel per se; indeed, various components such as computer 11, scanned display 22, and light pen 26 are described as being well known in the art.
Referring to Fig. 1, the data to be displayed are supplied from the tape 10 or auxiliary data source 13. They include representations of the rectangular Cartesian (x, y) coordinates of the points represented. Such data are fed to general purpose digital computer 11, which is operated under the control of a program stored in its program memory 21 to scan-convert the data from point-plotting format to a dot-matrix format in the computer memory 19. The specification discloses that the computer 11 is a well-known general purpose computer and that the Honeywell DDP-224 computer is especially well adapted for scan-conversion.
Binary to analog conversion of the scan-converted data is performed in memory display interface device 23, illustrated diagrammatically in Fig. 2. Here, horizontal and vertical pulse generators 204 and 205 are triggered by pulses from master clock 202 and their output passes through analog "OR" circuit 206 to provide a portion of the composite video signal for scanned display device 22 in Fig. 1 (shown as a T.V. monitor device 22 in Fig. 2). Shift register 201 receives scan-converted words from the computer memory and applies them to digital-to-analog converter 203 to supply signals combined with the output of the digital-to-analog converter in analog "OR" circuit 207 to form the composite video signal. That signal has "the usual characteristics associated with signals supplied to commercial or other television receivers" and results in the illumination of such points in the raster of the tube screen as will graphically represent the original input data.
Item 26 in Fig. 1 is described as a light pen "of standard design" that is "used to provide an indication to computer 11 of the desire by an operator to delete or modify information displayed on display device 22."
Appellant's specification refers to previously used techniques for scan-conversion, including one described in United States patent No. 3,293,614, issued December 20, 1966, to Fenimore et al. This patent discloses a graphic display system in which scan-conversion is achieved by hardwired apparatus. Appellant noted in an amendment2 to his application:
Scan conversion, as such, is not new. The concept of establishing, by some means, a dot matrix of the general type used in the present invention is not new. What is new is the claimed data processing method and apparatus for producing the exact functions claimed in claim 1. The detailed functioning is described in the present specification; the programming to accomplish each individual operation specified is obvious to an ordinary skilled worker in the field.
In the same amendment, appellant states that, instead of using specialized (hardwired) circuitry as in the Fenimore system, he employs a "programmable data processor operating under the control of a program" in the scan-conversion. Appellant emphasizes that complete program control with its attendant flexibility distinguishes his invention from the hardwired systems of the prior art.
Allowed claim 1, appealed claims 2, 7, and 8, dependent on claim 1, and appealed claims 9 and 10 are reproduced below:
Although all claims on appeal recite structures in "means for" language, we note that many of the "structures" called for in the claims are part of the computer as configured to carry out appellant's scan-conversion program. This is most readily observed in claim 10 and can be found to a lesser, but significant, extent in the remaining claims on appeal.
The examiner, in the final rejection, rejected claims 2 and 7-93 "as based upon inadequate disclosure."
He said:
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Alappat, In re, 92-1381
...that if the claim does recite structure, the claim necessarily does not "wholly preempt" an abstract idea. E.g., In re Noll, 545 F.2d 141, 148, 191 USPQ 721, 726 (CCPA 1976) ("The instant claims, however, are drawn to physical structure and not to an abstract" mathematical formula.); In re ......
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Diamond v. Diehr, Ii, 79-1112
...a program invention was claimed. 502 F.2d, at 773-774.19 The court again construed Benson as limited only to process claims in In re Noll, 545 F.2d 141 (1976), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 875, 98 S.Ct. 226, 54 L.Ed.2d 155 (1977); apparatus claims were governed by the court's pre-Benson conclusio......
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Application of Chatfield
...that Chatfield's claims are no more limited than were the claims in Benson. OPINION Issue Unlike the apparatus claims in In re Noll, 545 F.2d 141 (Cust. & Pat.App. 1976), decided this date, the appealed claims are drawn to a "method of operating a computing system." Although Chatfield's met......
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Application of Freeman
...4, 162 USPQ 37, 39 n. 4 (1969). 5 In In re Chatfield, supra, 545 F.2d at 156, 191 USPQ at 734, and in In re Noll, 545 F.2d 141, 148-49 n. 6, 191 USPQ 721, 726 n. 6 (Cust. & Pat.App.1976), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 875, 98 S.Ct. 226, 54 L.Ed.2d 155, 195 USPQ 465 (1977), this court pointed out t......
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...(en banc). Id., 31 USPQ2d at 1558 (citing In re Freeman, 573 F.2d 1237, 1247 n.11, 197 USPQ 464, 472 n.11 (C.C.P.A. 1978); In re Noll, 545 F.2d 141, 148, 191 USPQ 721, 726 (C.C.P.A. 1976); In re Prater, 415 F.2d 1393, 1403 n.29, 162 USPQ 541, 549-50 n.29 (C.C.P.A. The content of this articl......
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Software patent applications directed to business and mathematical processing applications highlight the tension between State Street and Benson.
...Id. at 1545 (emphasis added) (citing In re Freeman, 573 F.2d 1237, 1247 n.11, 197 U.S.P.Q. 464, 472 n.11 (C.C.P.A. 1978); In re Noll, 545 F.2d 141, 148, 191 U.S.P.Q. 721, 726 (C.C.P.A. 1976); and In re Prater, 415 F.2d 1393, 1403 n.29, 162 U.S.P.Q. 541,549-50 (C.C.P.A. (51.) See In re Lowry......