Ex Parte Narroschke et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 16, 2017

12160418 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 16, 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. 12/160,418 11/01/2010 Matthias Narroschke 690147.401USPC 1891 500 7590 03/16/2017 SEED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW GROUP LLP 701 FIFTH AVE SUITE 5400 SEATTLE, WA 98104 EXAMINER MAHMUD, FARHAN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2483 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/16/2017 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ________________ Ex parte MATTHIAS NARROSCHKE and HANS-GEORG MUSMANN ________________ Appeal 2017-000762 Application 12/160,418 Technology Center 2400 ________________ Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, and MICHAEL M. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges. BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejections of claims 23–42. App. Br. 4.1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Rather than repeat the Examiner’s positions and Appellants’ arguments in their entirety, we refer to the following documents for their respective details: the Final Action mailed March 17, 2015 (“Final Act.”); the Appeal Brief filed January 27, 2016 (“App. Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer mailed August 11, 2016 (“Ans.”); and the Reply Brief filed October 10, 2016 (“Reply Br.”). Appeal 2017-000762 Application 12/160,418 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE According to Appellants, The present invention relates to a method for coding a video signal using hybrid coding, comprising: reducing temporal redundancy by block based motion compensated prediction in order to establish a prediction error signal, deciding whether to transform the prediction error signal into the frequency domain, or to maintain the prediction error signal in the spatial domain for encoding. Abstract. Independent claim 23, reproduced below, is illustrative of the appealed claims: 23. A method, comprising: coding a video input signal using hybrid coding, the coding including: establishing a prediction error signal by reducing temporal redundancy of the input signal by block based motion compensated prediction, deciding whether to encode a portion of the prediction error signal in the frequency domain, transforming the portion of the prediction error signal into a transformed signal and encoding the transformed signal in the frequency domain in response to deciding to encode the portion of the prediction error signal in the frequency domain, and encoding the portion of the prediction error signal in the spatial domain in response to deciding not to encode the portion of the prediction error signal into the transformed signal in the frequency domain. Claims 23, 28, 34, 37, 39, 40, and 42 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Puri (US 5,253,056; issued Oct. 12, 1993). Appeal 2017-000762 Application 12/160,418 3 Claims 24–27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Puri in view of Xin (US 2005/0276493 A1; published Dec. 15, 2005). Claims 29, 32, 35, and 36 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Puri in view of Cho (US 2005/0196062 A1; published Sept. 8, 2005). Claims 30, 38, and 41 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Puri in view of Lee (US 2003/0128753 A1; published July 10, 2003). Claims 31 and 33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Puri in view of Lee and Prabhakar (US 2005/0168470 A1; published Aug. 4, 2005). 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). FINDINGS AND CONTENTIONS As noted above, the Examiner finds that Puri discloses every limitation of independent claim 23. Final Act. 4–7. More specifically, the Examiner finds that Puri’s switch 1042 decides whether to encode a portion of the prediction error signal in the frequency domain, as recited in independent claim 23. Ans. 4 (wherein the Examiner explains “[t]he switching of the type of coding based on the current input being an even 2 Switch 104 is unlabeled in Puri’s Figure 1, but see Puri, col. 6, ll. 15–18 (referring to the switch that receives the output of decimator 103 as “switch 104”). Appeal 2017-000762 Application 12/160,418 4 field o[r] an odd field still requires the switch [104] to make a decision based on the determination that the input data is an even field or odd field.”). This decision entails either (1) directing source intermediate format (SIF) decimated odd fields, via line 105, to odd field frequency scalable SIF encoder 107, or (2) directing source intermediate format (SIF) decimated even fields, via line 106, to even field SIF encoder 109. Puri, col. 6, ll. 15– 18; FIG. 1, cited in Ans. 4. The Examiner finds that Puri’s encoding of the odd fields in the odd field frequency scalable SIF encoder 107 corresponds to “encod[ing] a portion of the prediction error signal in the frequency domain,” as recited in the independent claim 23. Ans. 3, 4. The Examiner further finds that Puri’s encoding of the even fields in the even field SIF encoder 109 corresponds to “encod[ing] a portion of the prediction error signal in the spatial domain,” as recited in the independent claim 23. Ans. 5. Appellants assert, inter alia, that “Puri does not disclose, ‘deciding whether to encode a portion of the prediction error signal in the frequency domain’ or ‘encoding the prediction error signal in the spatial domain in response to deciding not to transform the prediction error signal into the transformed signal in the frequency domain.’” App. Br. 11–12. Appellants set forth the following two arguments in support of their more general assertion: 1) The Examiner confuses Puri’s switching between odd and even input fields with the claimed “deciding whether to encode a portion of the prediction error signal in the frequency domain;” and 2) Puri does not state or imply that any portion of Puri’s input signal is encoded “in the spatial domain in response to deciding Appeal 2017-000762 Application 12/160,418 5 not to transform the prediction error signal into the transformed signal in the frequency domain.” Id. at 12. ANALYSIS Puri is directed to an adaptive video encoding and decoding technique that facilitates the transmission, reception, storage, or retrieval of a scalable video signal. Puri col. 2, ll. 23–26. Puri’s “invention allows this scaling to be performed in both the spatial and frequency domains.” Id. col. 2, ll. 26– 27 (emphasis added). We see no disclosure within Puri, though, that would indicate a portion of the prediction error signal is encoded in the spatial domain. Instead, Puri’s Figure 4A indicates that the outputs of both the odd field frequency scalable SIF encoder 107 and even field SIF encoder 109 are encoded in the frequency domain. Figure 4A is related to Figure 1 in the following manner: Although FIG. 1 shows three separate encoders being employed to accomplish the encoding of the various video layers, in a particular embodiment of the invention, the encoding for all three layers may be accomplished within a single adaptive encoder. FIG. 4A–C show a simplified block diagram of the internal architecture of one example of such an adaptive picture encoder. Puri col. 7, ll. 55–62. Figure 4A depicts SIF odd field macroblocks and SIF even field macroblocks, as well as CCIR-technical-standard3 field slice macroblocks, being input from SIF fields input line 401 to differencer 412. Puri FIG. 4A. 3 “CCIR” stands for “comité consultatif international pour la radio.” Appeal 2017-000762 Application 12/160,418 6 Puri indicates that the differencer 412 outputs prediction error macroblocks signals. More specifically, the differencer “subtracts a prediction signal from the input SIF field from input 401 and outputs a prediction error signal.” App. Br. 13; see also, e.g., Puri col. 9, ll. 28–31. Figure 4A indicates that these prediction error macroblocks—the only output of the differencer 412—are all forwarded to the discrete cosine transform block (DCT-8) 413. We agree with Appellants that [o]ne skilled in the art would recognize that the DCT-8 block 13 always transforms the blocks of the prediction error signal into the frequency domain and the frequency domain encoder implemented by the blocks 416, 419, and 426–430 always encodes the transformed blocks of the prediction error signal in the frequency domain. Thus, Puri never decides not to encode any portion of a prediction error signal in the frequency domain and never encodes any portion in the spatial domain. App. Br. 13–14 (citing Puri cols. 9–10). For the foregoing reasons, Appellants have persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of independent claim 23, as well as independent claims 34, 37, 39, and 40, which set forth similar limitations. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of those claims, or of claims 28 and 42, which depend from claims 23 and 37, respectively. With respect to the remaining rejections of dependent claims 24–27, 29–33, 35, 36, 38, and 41, the Examiner does not rely upon any of the additionally cited references, Xin, Cho, Lee and Prabhakar, to cure the deficiency of the anticipation rejection explained above. Final Act. 13–24. Accordingly, we likewise do not sustain the obviousness rejections of these dependent claims for the reasons set forth above. Appeal 2017-000762 Application 12/160,418 7 DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 23–42 is reversed.4 REVERSED 4 The last limitation of claim 37 appears to include a clerical error: “adding a motion compensated prediction signal to the transformed decoded spatial [sic: frequency?] domain data sample or the decoded spatial domain data sample.” Upon further prosecution, Appellants and the Examiner should correct any such clerical errors contained in the claims.