APPLICATION OF PRITCHARD

• Decision Date: 19 October 1972
• Docket Number: Patent Appeal No. 8665.
• Citation: 463 F.2d 1359,175 USPQ 17
• Parties: Application of Dalton H. PRITCHARD and Alfred C. Schroeder.
• Court: U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)

175 USPQ 17, 463 F.2d 1359 (1972)

Application of Dalton H. PRITCHARD and Alfred C. Schroeder.

Patent Appeal No. 8665.

United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

August 17, 1972.

Rehearing Denied October 19, 1972.

William H. Meagher, Princeton, N.J., Roland A. Linger, Arlington, Va., attys. of record, for appellants.

S. Wm. Cochran, Washington, D.C., for Comm'r of Patents; Jere W. Sears, Washington, D.C., of counsel.

Before RICH, Acting Chief Judge, ALMOND, BALDWIN and LANE, Judges, and ROSENSTEIN, Judge, United States Customs Court, sitting by designation.

LANE, Judge.

This is an appeal from that portion of the decision of the Patent Office Board of Appeals affirming the rejection of claims 6, 11 and 19 of application Serial No. 300,855, filed July 25, 1952, entitled "Color Television." No appeal was taken from the board's affirmance of the examiner's rejection of other claims, and the examiner allowed certain claims. We affirm the board as to claims 6 and 11 and reverse with respect to claim 19.

PRIOR PROCEEDINGS

The twenty-year history of the application involved in this appeal was marked with four interferences, two of which reached this court. Particularly relevant to the present appeal for reasons which will become apparent later is the opinion in Pritchard v. Loughlin (hereinafter Pritchard),¹ 361 F.2d 483, 53 CCPA 1344 (1966). That interference involved the present application and a Loughlin application² for reissue of Patent No. 2,728,813 (hereinafter the '813 patent). The '813 patent issued December 27, 1955, on application Serial No. 297,739 (hereinafter the '739 application) filed July 8, 1952, and designated a division of application Serial No. 159,212 (hereinafter the '212 application) filed May 1, 1950.³ The '212 application itself matured into Loughlin Patent No. 2,773,929 (hereinafter the '929 patent) on December 11, 1956.

In Pritchard, this court affirmed the decision of the Board of Patent Interferences awarding priority of invention of the sole count in issue to Loughlin. We held that the board correctly rejected a charge by appellants that the count was not supported by the disclosure of the involved Loughlin reissue application, which was apparently identical to the disclosure of the '813 patent and the '739 application.

In addition to alleging error in holding the count to have been supported by the Loughlin application, appellants urged in Pritchard that the board improperly denied their request to reopen the interference to permit them to prove actual reduction to practice. It appears that subsequent to the board's decision awarding priority to Loughlin, appellants moved to reopen the interference so as to enable them to prove that they actually reduced the invention to practice in the interim between May 1, 1950, filing date of Loughlin's parent '212 application and the July 8, 1952, filing date of the divisional '739 application on which the '813 patent issued. Appellants contended that even if the '739 application, the '813 patent, and the involved reissue application supported the count, the disclosure of the '212 application did not provide adequate support. In effect, appellants alleged that new matter relative to the '212 application was included in the '739 application. Appellants' rationale, therefore, was that if they could prove actual reduction to practice prior to the filing date of the '739 application, the earliest date to which they believed Loughlin was entitled for the subject matter of the count, they would be entitled to the award of priority. The board did not reach the merits of appellants' argument. It held that appellants' request was untimely made. An order to show cause why judgment should not be rendered against them had been issued to appellants, final hearing had been held, and the board's decision had followed. Appellants' request was first made subsequent to the board's decision. This court held that the board was correct in denying appellants' request, and Judge Almond, writing for the court, stated:

It seems to be the view of Pritchard that the hearing before the board was merely a summary proceeding to determine whether Pritchard was properly put under order to show cause. We do not think that is correct. * * *

In effect, Pritchard is saying that the final hearing they requested was really final as to questions which could result in an award of priority adverse to Loughlin questions relating to support for the count in the '739 application, the '813 patent, and the reissue application but was only an interlocutory affair as far as a possible ruling adverse to them was concerned ruling as to whether or not they should have been placed under the show cause order. That position is untenable. There is an obvious public interest in avoiding piecemeal prosecution of interference proceedings in order to prevent unnecessary postponement of the beginning of the running of the term of patent resulting from an application involved in the proceedings. That interest is exemplified in the present case where the Pritchard application was filed over thirteen years ago. * * *

It thus seems clear that a final hearing requested by a party Pritchard under order to show cause must be a final hearing in a real sense and not just as to a question support for the count in the \'739 application, the \'813 patent, and the reissue application raised against that party\'s opponent Loughlin.

Another of the interferences pertinent here was one involving appellants' application and a patent to Farr⁴ from which claims, including one corresponding verbatim to claim 19 on appeal here, were copied. The interference was terminated when the primary examiner granted Farr's motion to dissolve on the ground that appellants' application did not support the counts.

Following the termination of all the interferences, ex parte examination of the present application was resumed in 1967 with the examiner's final rejection of, inter alia, the claims here on appeal. The rejection of each of the appealed claims was sustained by the board, and this appeal followed.

THE INVENTION

The invention relates to circuitry for a color television receiver. The record reveals that the information for reproducing an image on a color television set is transmitted by a complex signal which includes two video components—a brightness signal and a color carrier signal. The brightness signal, alternatively referred to as the luminance or monochrome signal, is provided by combining signals representative of three primary colors (such as red, blue and green) in the image to be reproduced in proportion to the contribution of each color to the total brightness. While the monochrome signal is representative of the brightness of the image rather than its color content, the signal may be expressed by a mathematical formula which equates brightness with the sum of the proportional contributions of the constituent primary colors.

The color carrier signal is a phase and amplitude modulated carrier from which information as to the color values in the image with the brightness signal subtracted therefrom may be directly derived. Circuitry in the color receiver provides, in addition to the brightness signal, frequently designated "Y," color difference signals for each of the primary colors. Using the symbols "R," "B," and "G" to represent the red, blue and green color signals respectively, the color difference signals may be designated "R-Y," "B-Y," and "G-Y" respectively. By combining each color difference signal with the brightness signal, i. e., electronically adding Y to R-Y, B-Y, and G-Y, the individual color signals, R, B, and G, may be obtained and applied to the color picture tube.

In appellants' circuitry, only two of the color difference signals, such as the red color difference signal (R-Y) and the blue color difference signal (B-Y), are derived directly from the color carrier. The third, i. e., green, color difference signal (G-Y) is obtained by combining the first two in an "adding circuit." This is possible because, as noted above, the brightness signal, Y, is mathematically related to the green color signal, G. In other words, G being a component of Y, it is possible to extract a signal G-Y from the signals R-Y and B-Y. Suffice to say that each of the appealed claims relates to circuitry which utilizes two directly derived color difference signals to generate the third color difference signal.

The three claims on appeal, with paragraphing ours, read as follows:

6. In a color television receiver adapted to receive a composite signal including a brightness signal and a subcarrier, and wherein a given phase of said subcarrier represents a first color difference signal having a brightness component and a color component, and a quadrature phase of said subcarrier represents a second color difference signal also having a brightness component and a color component,

apparatus for extracting selected component color signals from said composite signal, comprising in combination:

a first synchronous detector adapted to heterodyne said subcarrier with waves of subcarrier frequency and said given phase so as to recover said first color difference signal;

a second synchronous detector adapted to heterodyne said subcarrier with waves of subcarrier frequency and said quadrature phase so as to recover said second color difference signal; means for combining said first and second color difference signals so as to provide a third color difference signal;

a plurality of combining circuits, each being coupled so as to receive a different one of said color difference signals; and means for coupling said brightness signal to each of said combining circuits in such polarity that the brightness component of the color difference signal is cancelled.

11. In a color television receiver adapted to receive a composite signal including a subcarrier wave modulated in phase in accordance with a plurality of color

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