Ex Parte Minoo et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 28, 2017

13734778 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 28, 2017)

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. 13/734,778 01/04/2013 Koohyar Minoo GOGL-1092-B 2016 124222 7590 01/02/2018 Google Technology Holdings LLC c/o Young Basile Hanlon & MacFarlane, P.C. 3001 W. Big Beaver Road, Ste. 624 Troy, MI 48084 EXAMINER HUANG, FRANK F ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2485 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/02/2018 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): docketing @ youngbasile. com audit @ youngbasile. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte KOOHYAR MINOO, DAVID BAYLON, YUE YU, and LIMIN WANG1 Appeal 2017-005978 Application 13/734,778 Technology Center 2400 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, ERIC B. CHEN, and JEREMY J. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges. THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—28, all the pending claims in the present application. See Claims Appendix. We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 Appellants name Google Technology Holdings LLC as the real party in interest. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2017-005978 Application 13/734,778 The present invention relates generally to decoding a video bitstream having a plurality of pictures. See Abstract. Claim 1 is illustrative: 1. A method for decoding a video bitstream having a plurality of pictures, the bitstream generated by a video coding system with sample adaptive offset (SAO), the method comprising: obtaining processed video data from a video bitstream; partitioning the processed video data into processed blocks, wherein each of the processed blocks is equal to or smaller than a picture; and for each pixel of a plurality of pixels forming a processed block of the processed blocks: calculating an interpolated pixel value for the pixel using pixel values for pixels neighboring the pixel; applying a first SAO compensation to the pixel; and applying a second SAO compensation to the pixel, wherein at least one of the first SAO compensation or the second SAO compensation applied to the pixel is determined based on the interpolated pixel value. Appellants appeal the following rejections: Rl. Claims 1—3, 6—8, 10, 11, 13—16, and 18—28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over McCann (“Samsung’s Response to the Call for Proposal Video Compression Technology’'' Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) of ITU-TSG16WP3 and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29WG11, 1st Meeting: Dresden, DE, 15-23 April, 2010, pp. 1-42 ) and SeGall (“Unified Deblocking and SAO”, Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC) of ITU-TSG16 WP3 and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 7th Meeting: Geneva, 21-30 Nov, 2011; R2. Claims 4, 5, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over McCann, SeGall, and Siekmann (WO 2011/127961 2 Appeal 2017-005978 Application 13/734,778 Al, Oct. 20, 2011); and R3. Claims 9 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over McCann, SeGall, and Fu (“Sample Adaptive Offset for HEVC,” IEEE, MMSP 2011). We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellants, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). ANALYSIS We have reviewed Appellants’ arguments in the Briefs, the Examiner’s rejection, and the Examiner’s response to the Appellants’ arguments. We concur with Appellants’ conclusion that the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of the references teaches or suggests calculating an interpolated value for the pixel using pixel values for pixels neighboring the pixel, as set forth in the claims (see independent claims 1, 14, 21, and 28). As identified by Appellants, “in McCann[,] ‘the mean difference between the reconstructed signal and the original signal’ is not equivalent to ‘an interpolated pixel value’” (App. Br. 9-10) (emphasis added). Appellants further contend, and we agree, that “a ‘mean difference’ is not equivalent to a mean. For example, the mean of the set (1, 5) is 3 whereas the mean difference is 4” (Reply Br. 5). First, we note, as a matter of claim construction, that neither the claim nor Appellants’ Specification defines an interpolated pixel value, but instead gives exemplary values, e.g., “In this example, the interpolated current pixel value I is an average of its two neighbors, but in general it can be a weighted 3 Appeal 2017-005978 Application 13/734,778 combination or function of one or more neighboring values” (Spec. | 69). Therefore, we find that consistent with Appellants’ Specification an “interpolated pixel value” is any value that considers the weighted combination or average of neighboring values. Here the Examiner’s findings attempt to be consistent with Appellants’ disclosed interpolated pixel value being computed using an “average” or “mean” value of two “neighboring values.” However, we first find that McCann fails to disclose computing a “mean value,” but instead uses a “mean difference” in its computation, which as shown supra is distinguishable from a “mean value.” Specifically, McCann discloses “[f]or pixels in each category, the mean difference between the reconstructed signal and the original signal is computed” (see section 2.6.3). Secondly, Appellants further contend, and we agree, that McCann’s “reconstructed signal and the original signal” are not shown to be neighboring pixels (see App. Br. 10). McCann fails to describe the reconstructed signal and the original signal as neighboring pixels. Instead, McCann discloses that extreme correction (EXC) “tries to classify all pixels into several categories and compute correction value for each category based on the relationship between the current pixel value and four neighboring pixels, left, above, right, and bottom” (section 2.6.3.). At best, McCann discloses using the current pixel value P and neighboring pixels thereto for extreme correction, not that the reconstructed signal and the original signal include neighboring pixels. As such, we agree with Appellants that “[t]he Office Action notes that ‘[an] interpolation uses at least another neighbor pixel’ but then apparently ignores this interpretation in citing ‘the mean difference between the 4 Appeal 2017-005978 Application 13/734,778 reconstructed signal and the original signal,’ which does not use a neighbor pixel” (App. Br. 10). Thus, we disagree with the Examiner’s finding that McCann teaches calculating an interpolated pixel value for the pixel using pixel values for pixels neighboring the pixel, as recited in each of the independent claims. The Examiner has not found any of the other references of record teach this feature. Since we agree with at least one of the arguments advanced by Appellants, we need not reach the merits of Appellants’ other arguments. Accordingly, we will not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 1—28. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1—28 is reversed. REVERSED 5