Ex Parte Sasai et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 12, 2017

13742630 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 12, 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. 13/742,630 01/16/2013 Hisao SASAI 2013-0041A 2159 125044 7590 10/20/2017 Wenderoth, Lind & Ponack, L.L.P. 1030 15th Street, NW, Suite 400 East Washington, DC 20005 EXAMINER BECK, LERON ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2487 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/20/2017 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): eoa@ wenderoth. com ddalecki@wenderoth.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte HISAO SASAI, TAKAHIRO NISHI, YOUJI SHIBAHARA, TOSHIYASU SUGIO, KYOKO TANIKAWA, TORU MATSUNOBU, and KENGO TERADA Appeal 2017-002884 Application 13/742,6301 Technology Center 2400 Before ERIC S. FRAHM, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and SCOTT B. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judges. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1—13. We have jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify Sun Patent Trust as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 2.) Appeal 2017-002884 Application 13/742,630 THE INVENTION Appellants’ disclosed and claimed invention is directed to determining coding order for decoding moving pictures. (Abstract.) Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal: 1. An image decoding method for decoding a coded moving picture on a per coding unit basis, the method comprising: determining an adaptive processing order for decoding coding units included in the coded moving picture based on a largest size from among sizes of the coding units included in the coded moving picture, the coding units included in the coded moving picture being generated by dividing the coded moving picture, and the coding units included in the coded moving picture being image data; switching a decoding order to either a fixed processing order or the determined adaptive processing order based on first information included in the coded moving picture, the decoding order being an order in which the coding units included in the coded moving picture are decoded; and decoding the coding units included in the coded moving picture according to the decoding order switched to. REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 1, 5, 6, and 10-13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over An et al. (US 2011/0293004 Al, pub. Dec. 1, 2011) and Misra et al. (US 2013/0003823 Al, pub. Jan. 3, 2013). (Final Act. 2—5.) The Examiner rejected claims 2, 3, 7, and 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over An, Misra, and Lou et al. (US 2012/0082234 Al, pub. Apr. 5, 2012). (Final Act. 5—6.) 2 Appeal 2017-002884 Application 13/742,630 The Examiner rejected claims 4 and 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over An, Misra, and Wang et al. (US 2013/0089152 Al, pub. Apr. 11, 2013). (Final Act. 6—7.) ISSUE ON APPEAL Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following dispositive issue:2 Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of An and Misra teaches or suggests the independent claim 1 limitations” determining an adaptive processing order for decoding coding units included in the coded moving picture based on a largest size from among sizes of the coding units included in the coded moving picture, the coding units included in the coded moving picture being generated by dividing the coded moving picture, and the coding units included in the coded moving picture being image data; switching a decoding order to either a fixed processing order or the determined adaptive processing order based on first information included in the coded moving picture, the decoding order being an order in which the coding units included in the coded moving picture are decoded; and the commensurate limitations recited in independent claims 6 and 13. (App. Br. 4-7.) 2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the positions of the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed June 6, 2016) (herein, “App. Br.”); the Reply Brief (filed Dec. 14, 2016) (herein, “Reply Br.”); the Final Office Action (mailed Nov. 24, 2015) (herein, “Final Act.”); and the Examiner’s Answer (mailed Oct. 14, 2016) (herein, “Ans.”) for the respective details. 3 Appeal 2017-002884 Application 13/742,630 ANALYSIS In rejecting the independent claims, the Examiner relies on the disclosure in An of switching between a fixed order binarization for macroblock type and an adaptive order binarization. (Final Act. 2—3; An Figs. 1, 3, Iflf 5, 19, 26, 45, 47, 48.) The Examiner further relies on the disclosure in Misra of using a flag to signal if entropy decoding is initialized at the start of the largest coding unit. (Final Act. 3; Misra 1200.) Appellants argue neither An nor Misra relate to determining processing order for decoding coding units based on the size of the largest coding unit, as required by the claims. (App. Br. 4—6.) The Examiner finds: An teaches determining an adaptive processing order in [0047], wherein adaptive processing is used. One of ordinary skill[] in the art would understand that if an adaptive processing order is used, then it has been determined. In addition, Misra discloses in [0071] that unless slices are using flexible macroblock ordering, macroblocks within a slice are processed in the order of a raster scan. Furthermore, Misra discloses in [0200], decoding may be initialized based on the start of the largest coding unit. Once the decoding has started, it is interpreted that a processing order has been determined. (Ans. 9—10.) The Examiner does not explain how these or other disclosures in An and Misra, whether taken alone or in combination, teach or suggest the limitations at issue. As discussed, the adaptive processes disclosed in An relate to binarization of macroblock type, not the order of processing macroblocks (i.e., “coding units”). The adaptive processes of Misra relate to the manner of entropy decoding within macroblocks, not the order of processing the macroblocks. Nor are any of the adaptive processes of the references based on the largest coding unit. (See also Reply Br. 4.) 4 Appeal 2017-002884 Application 13/742,630 Accordingly, we are constrained by the record to find the Examiner errs in rejecting independent claims 1, 6, and 13. CONCLUSION For the reasons stated above, we do not sustain the obviousness rejections of independent claims 1, 6, and 13 over An and Misra. We also do not sustain the obviousness rejections of claims 5 and 10-12 over An and Misra, of claims 2, 3, 7, and 8 over An, Misra, and Lou, and of claims 4 and 9 over An, Misra, and Wang, which claims depend from claims 1 or 6. DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—13. REVERSED 5