Ex Parte Minagawa et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 28, 201613022804 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 28, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/022,804 02/08/2011 23494 7590 11/01/2016 TEXAS INSTRUMENTS IN CORPORA TED P 0 BOX 655474, MIS 3999 DALLAS, TX 75265 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Yusuke Minagawa 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. TI-66145 7421 EXAMINER BELA!, NAOD W ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2481 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/01/2016 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): uspto@ti.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte YUSUKE MINAGA WA and SATORU YAMAUCHI Appeal2015-004433 Application 13/022,804 Technology Center 2400 Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and SCOTT E. BAIN, Administrative Patent Judges. BAIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-13, which constitute all claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify Texas Instruments Incorporated as the real party in interest. App. Br. 3. Appeal2015-004433 Application 13/022,804 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants' invention relates to error detection in the decoding of image data. Claims 1 and 7 are independent. Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and the subject matter of this appeal, and reads as follows (with the disputed limitations in italics): 1. A method for decoding image data, the method compnsmg: receiving a bit stream of encoded image data, wherein the image data was encoded in a selected domain by a transform function; extracting a set of coefficients from the bit stream, wherein the set of coefficients represent a block of the image data; comparing each coefficient to a theoretical model of a distribution of the coefficient data representative of the transform function; and indicating a decoding error when a coefficient does not lie vvithin the theoretical model. App. Br. 9 (Claims App.). The Rejections on Appeal Claims 1--4, 7, and 9--11 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lin et al. (US 6,721,362 B2; issued Apr. 13, 2004) ("Lin") and Cirillo et al. (US 2007 /0257835 Al; pub. Nov. 8, 2007) ("Cirillo"). Final Act. 4--6. Claims 5, 6, 12, and 13 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lin, Cirillo, and Hourunranta (US 2004/0101055 Al; pub. May 27, 2004). Final Act. 6-7. 2 Appeal2015-004433 Application 13/022,804 Claim 8 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lin, Cirillo, and Lee (US 2009/0213938 Al; pub. Aug. 27, 2009). Final Act. 8. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of the arguments raised in the Briefs, on the record before us. Appellants contend the Examiner erred in rejecting the claims, because (according to Appellants) the Examiner did not make any findings demonstrating a rationale or motivation to combine the references. App. Br. 6. For the reasons set for the below, we are persuaded by Appellants' argument and, therefore, we cannot sustain the Examiner's rejections. Obviousness rejections "cannot be sustained by mere conclusory statements; instead, there must be some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness." KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). In the Final Action, the only statement arguably addressing rationale to combine is the Examiner's circular assertion that it would have been obvious to "modify Lin's error detection method" by incorporating Cirillo "in order to implement an error detection method." Final Act. 5. Appellant responds, in the Opening Brief, that Cirillo's teaching of theoretical models for use in compression during encoding of data is entirely unrelated to the problem of error detection in decoding data, as taught in Lin. App. Br. 5---6. Specifically, Appellants maintain that Cirillo teaches constructing an improved compression of data in the encoding process, by representing coefficients as "departures from a standard statistical distribution function" such as "Laplacian, Gaussian, or 3 Appeal2015-004433 Application 13/022,804 Rayleigh," id. (citing Cirillo il 56), and that one of ordinary skill would not, therefore, combine Cirillo with Lin. App. Br. 5---6. The Examiner's Answer, like the Final Action, does not address Appellants' argument and is devoid of any meaningful findings regarding the rationale or motivation for combining the references. The Answer merely states, "the obviousness conclusion was arrived upon discovering Cirillo's reference" and "the Examiner determined ... Lin can be combined with ... Cirillo in order to arrive at [A ]ppellants' broadly claimed invention." Ans. 9. The record before us, namely the Final Action and Answer, includes only conclusory statements, with no reasoning or findings explaining the rationale for why one of ordinary skill in the art would combine Lin with Cirillo. See KSR Int 'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. at 418, supra. Given the absence of findings in the record, we cannot sustain the Examiner's rejections. DECISION We reverse the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-13. REVERSED 4 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation